


black heart stomp

by gatheringbones



Category: Legend of Dragoon
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Kung Fu Action Romance, Romance, Together They Fight Crime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 14:18:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 151,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gatheringbones/pseuds/gatheringbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An eleven-thousand-year-old ex-dragoon and a Rouge outlaw with a war god on her back. She's on the run, he's forgotten how. Bandits. Bad dreams. Bad decisions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a quick reminder that i started this when i was sixteen, and last updated at the age of twenty three. this was very, very much a beginner's work for a very, very long time. it is, however, extremely earnest. that excuses some of the mess. 
> 
> this was the story that taught me how to write. but to start to learn how to write, i had to really, really, _really_ not know how to write.

**0.-0.-0**

Of course there were a lot of things that I could have done differently.

That's what everyone says, when the dust has settled and the ink on the last page is finally drying. But then someone nearly always takes a look at the main character and goes, "Wow. Did you have any idea what you were doing at the time, or did you just make it up?"

Sadly, I did. It was seat-of-my-pants, luck-of-the-draw planning the entire way on my part, and even if I'd had the chance to straighten it all out and go, "All right, I'm going to do _this_ here, and avoid  _that_ , and kiss him  _really_ hard then so as to avoid any future confusion," it probably wouldn't have worked anyway.

But that would have made for a less interesting story all around, wouldn't it?

First off, to give you an idea as to what sort of tale you're dealing with: I'm a liar. I'm a cheat, a cheapskate, a thief, a bandit, and a heroine. I've murdered, and I've fought dirty, and I've enjoyed the hell out of myself at the time. I've hated people with a daunting intensity, and I've loved others with every inch of my warped, self-serving little heart.

But it's a good story, don't get me wrong. There's action. There's chase scenes. There's grand adventure, dastardly villains and shining heroes

There's also a lot of crying and running down back alleys, and bad food with worse service and endless,  _endless_ cups of coffee.

There's also true love. Can't forget that.

Basically, it's a rather convoluted story. It's about a really stupid girl who wanted to do the right thing but couldn't always manage it, and about a bent-up old man in a younger one's body. It's about getting blood caked so thick on your hands that you can barely form a fist, and about slapping some more on there for old time's sake. It's about green coats and dusty hair and eyes with too much blue.

There's a whole ton of other stuff too, but I can't really list it all here.

But all in all, it's a pretty good one. It's mine, so it'd better be.

Like most stories, it starts out with a really good puke.

**0.-0.-0**

I hate boats.

I clamped my lips shut until I could lean over the bucket again, and cough out my guts.

Correction.

I  _really_  hate boats.

Ironic, I thought as I leaned back into the tiny alcove that I'd claimed as my own. I'm from an island nation the size of a pocket handkerchief, and boats made my stomach roil.

Formerly from.

Right.

My stomach was now far too empty to do anything other than cramp horribly whenever the boat lurched. I desperately wanted a flask of cold fruit juice, or a tiny bite of sweetbread to take the taste of bile from my mouth- but that would start the cycle all over again, and wouldn't  _that_  be fun.

Besides, they didn't have any. They had meat. And biscuits. And a nice sloppy handful of attitude to go with it.

My first day on board, on the first meal, I'd asked the cook somewhat grouchily if he'd had any specialties other than flavorless gray stuff with weevils. (Come on, give me a break, it was my second day on the run, and that stuff was shit, seriously.)

He'd given me one long look, all squinty-like to the side, and then leaned over and spat into my meat and biscuit blend.

Apparently he'd had a bit of a cold that day. I had tried to eat around it.

So, I wasn't on cook's make-nice list (a document that surely stretched halfway around the globe). It didn't matter anyway, since I couldn't keep food down if I'd tried. It was enough to make a girl go Rouge Style on their asses.

- _the sound she'd made around my fist, the pause before Dad started screaming at me, when all was white heat, and silly relief that I'd won, and slowly growing horror.-_

Nononononononono. No. Absolutely not.

I wasn't going to think about that.

I wrapped my arms around my knees and rested my chin on top of them. My gut squirdled nauseatingly, but settled down to a mere state of constant misery.

It didn't stink too badly down here. The Queen Fury was a clean ship, clean and brand spankin' new by the looks of it. The sailors were always boasting about its revolutionary steam engine, and took terrible offense to me staring blankly at them and saying, "So… it runs on  _water_?"

I was one of four passengers on board, and we'd spread ourselves out pretty evenly across the ship. Unlike most vessels, the Fury was enormous, and there were plenty of small corridors, storerooms, and hallways to get lost in, and I'd immediately exploited this fact. None of the crew could remember seeing me above deck in the last four days or so, which I attributed to my inherent sneakiness. You know. When I wasn't horking my guts out in a bucket.

We didn't talk much, the other passengers and I. Sure, we nodded to each other at dinner once in a while, but there was no sparkling conversation, trust me. Besides, we'd all acquired passage under rather dubious circumstances, and didn't really want to make eye contact with anyone.

I didn't want anyone looking at me too closely, and passing on to anyone who asked that yes, they had seen a smallish girl with mousy brown hair on the ship, why do you ask?

I was in the hold, where the barrels of salted pork, corn meal, and ale resided, nested between huge coils of rope and crates of cargo. It was also where I'd chosen to stake my claim; quiet, and relatively secluded (except for random appearances from the cook whenever he needed supplies, who would take one look at me, snort, then walk out with a barrel of fish under each porky arm.) and even had a few old blankets strewn around. Okay, not strewn, really, more like packaged neatly with several dozen others in a crate that was a bitch to pry open, but what the hell, I was cozy.

It didn't really get that cold at night, actually. The huge boiler down below made the ship sweltering on hot days, but it stayed warm at night, even when the fog from the north blew in and caused the sailors above deck to gather in little huddles sipping large quantities of brandy.

The weather was changing. Back home, winter meant that you'd occasionally get a brisk wind or a roiling storm every once in a while, not even enough to make the palm trees wilt. It was late fall by now, and already I was loathe to get caught in the chilly regions abovedeck, where I would inevitably give my best small-lapdog-without-a-sweater-on impression. Not like home, where you could sleep on a reed mat in a corner of the room, with the wind blowing in sweet and warm from the jungle…

I stopped that line of thought with a snap and hauled one of the blankets up over me.

I wasn't going to think about home. I wasn't going to think about anything. I was just going to get to Furni and….

Huh. Hadn't actually thought of what I was going to do once I got there. I began thinking of the employment opportunities for a virile young woman- and quickly shied away from that thought.

I wasn't dancing for  _anybody_.

Couldn't cook. (Apparently no one likes their meat well charred) Couldn't sew. (Hmph, it's not like a third sleeve isn't  _useful_ ). Could  _probably_  serve drinks or something, but how long could that last when Dad was probably going to hop the next ship to the mainland to haul me back by the ear?

Really, the only option for me was to do what I was trained to do- fight.

I sat and thought on that a while. The ship obliged by making creaking noises and rocking back and forth as ships normally do. It smelled like hot soot and sweat down here. I was right underneath where they shoveled coal endlessly into the furnace; big sweaty men with black streaked skin and handkerchiefs tied over their noses and mouths, who yelled at me for getting too close the one and only time I expressed curiosity.

Could I do that? Fight, I mean.

There's something  _wrong_  with me, I thought angrily. I'm average. I've always been average. But when I fight when I'm mad…

Lotta was your best friend, hissed another part of me. You killed her, just like that. You broke her fucking  _face_  in with your bare hands. You know the noise she made. You know what your hand was covered with.

_It was so easy to wash off._

A noise from above me. I scrunched down so I'd be harder to see, and peeked carefully out from behind a barrel.

The first mate. He bent down to move a box or two out of the way, then took a smallish one and hefted it experimentally. Whistling, he tucked it under his arm and walked back up the stairs to the noise and bustle of the boiler room.

I relaxed, and stretched my legs out, rubbing my greasy hair with one hand.

But it was the only thing I knew how to do. And apparently (here my thoughts took a jolting lurch to the land of Bad Morbid Humor) I was good at it.

And what's to say you couldn't be  _very_ good at it? To just let everything go and beat the shit out of everyone who looks sideways at you, to walk tall and shout a lot.

I leaned back and pinched the bridge of my nose.

Perhaps I could clean chimneys.

Making a disgusted noise with my teeth, I pushed the bucket of sick away with my foot so it wouldn't spill on me in the while I slept (an experience I had treasured last night) and rolled over one last time.

Smelling of stale puke and saltwater- I slept.

**0.-0.-0**

_Her eyes met mine, wide and worried, and her voice was hesitant. "You're sure you want to go? You can just tell him I was out on the reef again and made you late."_

_I heard myself reply, but the words went all fuzzy and strange…._

A foot in my back.

Grunting, I moved away from it, half asleep still. My arm had somehow ended up over my eyes while I was sleeping, and I couldn't see. "Guh-fuzzeh…." I said very intelligently.

Another half-kick, half-nudge. "Hey."

My arm slid off, and I peered blearily at the offender, my eyes muzzy with sleep still.

A sailor glared down at me, his expression displeased. I remembered him. One of the gruffer ones who scoffed at the seasick passengers and pushed ahead of us in the queue for food. His brow furrowed suddenly, "Hey, how long you been down here? You can't sleep here."

I looked around me. Light poured in from an open hatch in the ceiling. The ship was rocking gently side to side, but nearly as much as it had been on open sea. I frowned. "Are we at harbor already?"

"Yeah. Got here during the night." He said, his entire body conveying the idea that he spent a lot of time in small confined spaces looking over long lines of figures and by the gods, if the numbers didn't match,  _someone would pay._

"Oh." I said, feeling stupid. Of course I knew the Queen Fury was a fast ship, but I had no idea that it could reach Furni in a matter of days.

He nudged me again with his foot rather unnecessarily, and I found myself wondering what his reaction would be if I wedged his foot so far down his throat that he could tickle his spleen with his toes.

Hot excitement wakening in me, my sense sharpened, my eyes narrowed.

No. Don't kill him.

_Oh, but he so very much deserves it_ , whined a part of me that I quickly shushed.

"Hey, come on. Time for you to leave, Miss." He said, patience apparently running thin. I rose to my feet stiffly, every muscle in my body screaming  _noooooo, we don't move like that anymore._  I groped randomly around for the small bag of possessions I had brought with me, and held it protectively to my chest once I'd found it. I swayed dangerously on my feet. Oh dear. Though it had nothing left, I could feel my stomach rebelling once more. I stumbled quickly to the set of steep stairs that led to the upper deck.

The sailor's voice rang out from behind me, "Wait a minute, aren't you going to clean this up?" I heard a slosh, "What's in this bucket?"

I ducked my head, and started going faster. I made it with my head halfway out into open air before a clunk and a spattering sound confirmed that in his curiosity, the sailor had tipped over the bucket. I half-sprinted, half-fell across the deck to the gangplank, his shout of outrage and disgust that followed after me suggesting that perhaps he was going to have to wash his socks more than once.

But that was all behind me, as I stepped off the Queen Fury and was enveloped by Furni Harbor.

Oh,  _gods…._

I was dizzily hearkened back to when I was a kid skipping out on practice, flipping through an old atlas in a dusty corner of our house, a room crowded with piles of ragged fishing nets, broken sparring equipment, rickety furniture, and a pile of old books. No one at home really had time for reading, but I had stumbled across that old room quite by accident one day, and had been instantly enamored with the grimy old tomes and their wealth of pictures, maps, and descriptions.

There, on a pile of old hand wraps and fishing wire, I had layed on my stomach with my ankles swinging in the air as I poured through the old texts. I read about the Trade City Lohan and its labyrinth of streets and stalls, and its bi-yearly warrior's challenge. I discovered the city of Fletz, with its twin spiraling towers representing the moon and the stars, surrounding the fat dome of the Sun. I read about the Flower City Donau, and the cramped inscription near the bottom of the first drawing, ' _those with allergies, beware.'_

And finally, Furni, the Water City.

' _Streets composed of canals.´_ it said.  _'Economy mostly fishing, some business in the fur trade.'_

That didn't even come close.

The harbor was a beehive of bustling activity. Seagulls keened over the maze of boat masts and pilings that jutted up into the sky. Groups of sailors loudly swaggered past me, tucking their shirts in and setting their hats to a more rakish angle as they prepared to spend their leave-time in the most entertaining manner possible.

I walked down the dock slowly, looking around with a look of pure amazement. This was like nothing I'd ever dreamed of.

I made my way farther down the dock until I hit the main street into town. The buildings matched the scratchy drawing in the book, which had given me the impression that they were all giant clay bubbles. They were, in a way; some small, some large, and some in the most random places, all made of pale mud and stone. There was some sort of gathering down on the other side of the bridge that was steadily drawing a crowd. As I drew closer, I became aware of more and more people around me, carrying crates of fish, or squawking poultry. Men poled tiny, flat-bottomed boats with effortless speed down the canals, shouting coarsely to each other with blistering language.

I hitched my bag up higher on my shoulder and walked cautiously further down the faded and creaking wood of the dock. Carefully avoiding a trio of men hauling a full net out of a bobbing fishing boat, I made my way to the walkway that lined one of the canals. The water rushed by in a steady current, pulling it out to sea. The water was clear, clean, and green, and wasn't clouded with sewage or choked with debris. I was surprised by this- until I saw all the guards lining the streets. One guy was stupid enough to drop his greasy sandwich wrapper into the pristine waters, and was immediately surrounded by no less than four surly-looking guards informing him that he could either reach in and pick it up, or get an impromptu swimming lesson from Burger here.

Burger had a large mustache and an unnerving way of flexing his biceps. I felt people relax a little around me as the offender sputtered, thought about it for a second, then quickly bent down to get his arm wet to the elbow retrieving his trash.

Everyone poured past me with an absent sort of hurriedness that made me feel twice as lost and kittenish as I already did. It was infuriating. I kept wanting to jerk them around by their collars and teach them the real meaning of a Zen Attitude. But that would probably result in me getting far more up close and personal with Burger's biceps than I ever wanted to be.

"Scuse me, Pet," said a bearded man with an absurdly tall hat as he shouldered past me carrying a large barrel of glistening fish. I stepped back hurriedly- too hurriedly, accidentally treading on the feet of the woman behind me. She was less courteous.

"WATCH it, idiot!" she snapped, and I was shoved rudely from behind, throwing me into yet another person's path.

Panic jolted through my veins like sick heat. Soon I was in the middle of a whole slew of irate people, each one loudly protesting the delay. One old woman caught me behind the ear with the knob of her walking stick, and it was only through rigid self-control that I didn't immediately give into the blinding rage that made me want to break it over her little gray head.

The guards were looking over here with increasing irritation at what I was sure was becoming a jolly good brawl. Fear flooded me- I felt the tang of it in my mouth. I quickly elbowed and slithered my way out of the mess I'd caused, and made fast my escape down an alleyway, probably breaking one guy's nose in the process. I didn't really regret it- plus, the crunching sound made up for a whole lot of the day's bullshit.

_Warm readiness roiling in my gut, a sweet ache in my fists._

I shouldn't have felt good about that.

Sandals slapping loudly on the cobblestones, I headed further into the city.

**0.-0.-0**

It was all Gehrich's fault.

Maybe not. I could be rational about this and trace it back to my father, who trained Gehrich, and trained me.

But after Gehrich left, everything went wrong.

He was only a few years older than me, and my father's disciple by the age of ten. He was serious and quiet even then. I remember him from when I was little, sorting out my wooden playthings with me on the huge, expanding floor of my house. He had very black eyes, and an overly large, slightly beaky nose that stretched out very far from his face, and a very small, secret smile that showed up hardly  _ever_ , but when it did, it made him adorable. His big hands, rough and battered from his constant training, were gentle for all that, and carefully held my favorite toy as he asked what its name was.

He was always relaxed in my home, in the hours before my father returned from a day's fishing and fighting. Gehrich trained for many hours of the day, but he always made time to come and see me, and fix me lunch if he had a moment.

He was very devoted to his position as my father's disciple. He was gone all hours of the day and night, and as I got older, I heard stories of him having to stand atop a tall pole for hours, even days at a time. Or having to go out into the jungle with no weapons of any kind, and to return with the head of one of the great spotted cats. I didn't believe it though- he was always so gentle and slow on our rare afternoons together; and my own training was so lackadaisical that such dedication were incomprehensible to me.

Around that time, I had been training with a group of kids my age. Everyone in the village knew how to fight- we got raided so often that it was a necessity. Still, not everyone needed to be a complete master, just deadly enough to kick the ass of any scurvy-ridden pirate that thought our Island was the perfect place to "stock up" on supplies.

I was about thirteen when it happened.

I don't know where, or even what it was about, but Gehrich came back hard-eyed from one of his training sessions. I saw him walking furiously back from the platform, his jaw tight.

He didn't come to my house that night. Or ever after.

Dad was surly that night. Surlier than usual. He didn't think much of me; he thought that anyone who didn't spend twelve hours of every day mindlessly trying the punch through a building was obviously not serious about the Art. We didn't see each other much, he was always off training those who he wanted to succeed the school. I think it was because Mom died such a long time ago. He could deal with me then, I was just a small burbly person that he could coo at, then ignore. Once she was gone, he still didn't take any more interest than that.

He'd focused on Gehrich, instead.

Some said that they'd had a fight, but that idea was dismissed immediately. No disciple in his right mind would attack his master- least of all Haschel, who could  _take out_ anyone in the village with one hand tied behind his back and both eyes poked out with a stick.

But my father had moved stiffly that night, and he had a discoloration on his cheek that was no trick of the light. I imagined Gehrich's large hands curled into perfect, deadly fists, and nearly shivered.

And Gehrich didn't come back.

He'd left, they'd said. One of the smaller fishing boats was missing, and all his possessions were gone.

What did his family think? some asked. I remembered somebody else shrugging at that, and saying he didn't have any. Fever took 'em. Years ago.

My mother had died of that fever.

Gehrich had left, and no one knew why. My father was without anyone to pass his Art on to. But then he remembered me, and that's when things pretty much went to shit.

Really, you could say it was the begining of the pattern.

**0.-0.-0**


	2. Chapter 2

" _Claire! Quit holding yourself back! Put some weight behind your punches!"_

_Anger bubbling in my chest, thick and noisome like boiling oatmeal. "Yes, father." Went all snide on the father bit. I never called him that, except when we were training and he acted more like a horse's ass than a father._

" _Yes MASTER! I am your Master, not your father!" He never failed to miss the sarcasm._

_Always that barking annoyed tone, like duh, I should know this, there was no way this short mustachioed sadist was related to me. In a way he made it easier. I didn't want him to be._

_My curled fist slicing towards Lotta's throat. She flinched under the blow, but blocked it just barely with her arm. She was shaking with the effort of holding me back. Face white, she muttered to me,"Claire, let it go, just do it like we practiced, remember?"_

_I met her worried green eyes and sweating face, and relented, some of the tension in my shoulders easing. I nodded, stepping back to ready myself. "Sorry," I grunted. "Don't-"_

" _CLAIRE! What are you doing? Follow through with a move like that; don't let her recover!"_

 _Rage slammed back into place with a sudden, blurry sureness, making my face hot and my fingers tingle. Who did he think he was, hissed a part of me, as another, silent part began crawling its way out from inside me. It buzzed on the way up- shivered and yowled and laughed high and terribly.. It wanted blood on my fists and in my hair and in my teeth and sweet retribution. Why did he only correct_ me?

_I settled my stance, dancing back on my heels, and flung myself at Lotta, and I only half-caught her saying-_

" _Claire, I can't keep up like this."_

**0.-0.-0**

It was in the quiet gray moment before dawn that I woke up again, shooting upright in bed with not enough air in my lungs. My fingers were curled into claws into my pillow, which I held in front of me like a shield. I was shuddering like a winded horse, my muscles twitching and jittering as if after a long fight.

It was fucking  _weird._

It took me a while to calm down. Once I did, I cursed quietly, and threw my pillow down again. I leaned forward, blankets puddling about my midsection with my head in my hands.

It would have been nice, I thought, pulling up my knees and hooking one brown, gangly arm around them. It would have been nice to not see it again.

To my immediate panic, I felt my eyes blurring, and my face growing hot. I swung my legs around, ignoring the rustle and squeak of the cheap straw mattress and stalked to the other side of the room, my feet slapping down hard on the floorboards.

I wasn't going to cry.

If I started crying, I wasn't going to stop. And I didn't have  _time_  to cry.

Rubbing my forehead angrily with the heel of my hand, I scowled and paced back and forth. My clothes were horribly damp-feeling with sweat, and quickly becoming clammy in the chill air. I was dressed only in a sleeveless undershirt and a loose pair of pants, normal attire at home, but far too cold for Furni.

Fine, I thought, and stepped back, bouncing slightly on the balls of my feet. I'd practice if I couldn't sleep.

**0.-0.-0**

According to Dad, I'd always been kind of a lousy fighter. But even though he'd been pretty biased on that account, I had to grant it to him that yeah, I hadn't taken it as seriously as some of his other students, and I hadn't enjoyed hitting people in the face as much as I should have. Who does, at first?

High kick, swirling round from the left side. Sink down to the stance, rocking back and forth like a cobra about to strike. Stupid pose anyway, don't know why they teach it, but Gehrich thought it was cool. Punch, left right, left side kick, whistling through the air. Duck, roll, gather your feet under you and spring up into the air.

But if you're working with a guy who hates your guts unless you know how to do it right, and is marginally indifferent to you once you pull it off, you learn how to do it. And then there's something kinda fun about it after all.

Block an imaginary blow, then fall to your hands and use your feet to sweep the legs out from under your opponent. Slam your heel down onto where they sprawl, then rise to your feet and meet them again.

I settled into the routine that had been drilled into me from nearly the time I began to walk. The sky was dark still, but lightening towards the east. The three smaller, fainter Endiness Moons were sinking slowly towards the horizon, waning into needle-sharp crescents. Above them, and easily drowning them out hung the worm-eaten exterior of the Never-Setting Moon. Its face glittered like a faceted jewel, or the metallic wings of some tropical insect. It was growing fainter as well, as the sun crept over the houses.

My muscles lost some of their screechy ache as I flicked my hair out of my eyes and worked through the routine. I'd come, gradually, to hate it over the years, when before there had only been a sweet love of being able to move so quickly and surely. But it was the only thing that would allow me to shut my brain off and just  _move_.

I settled into a simple, brainless, one-two-punch-leg-swing when a knock at the door startled me out of my reverie. It was urgent and loud, a rat-tat-tat that you just  _knew_  was made by someone with a very nervous face and a receding hairline.

"Miss? Miss? Are you all right in there? What are those noises?"

Ooh. High voice. Squeaky, some would say. Chattering almost.

 _Dear Soa._ I thought. _I have a squirrel at my door._

I shook that thought away and did not giggle- it would have sent me into hysterics. "Uh." I replied, lowering my fists. "Yeah. I mean yes. I mean- I'm fine. Just uh… fell out of bed."

I stopped and made a face at myself. Never again would I come up with something so idiotic.

A pause. Then the voice started up again. "But, miss, all those noises…. You  _disturbed_  the other guests…" He sounded almost shrill now.

Shiiiit. "Um- Sorry!" I called back. "Just fell out of bed- I'll be quiet now!"

The man- presumably the innkeeper, paused again. I remembered him from last night. Twitchy from too many nights of bad patrons and broken tables. He had looked rather weedy and pale, and I almost felt bad for bothering him.

Wait. A part of my mind said. He's the reason your bed had little buggies sucking your sweet blood juices all night.

The cheap jackass.

He spoke up again after a longish pause, and you could hear the doubt eating away at his voice, "Just keep it down miss!"

I heard his footsteps head back down the hall.

Running sweaty fingers through my hair, I blew air through my lips. Then just for fun, I did it again.

Sweet Soa, I needed a bath.

Hmmn.

Food would be nice too.

**0.-0.-0**

I swirled my cup experimentally and peered dubiously down into it. "Er." I said. " This isn't…. fruit juice."

Whatever it was, it was dark, and smelled musky and wood-like. Like really fragrant dirt. I poked it with my spoon.

When I let go, the spoon remained upright.

I looked helplessly at the maid who'd brought it.

She stared at me darkly, one hand supporting a tray on her hip, giving her a bent, cocked to the side look that didn't look so much attractive as it did give her the look of someone with rickets. "Ain't you ever had coffee before?" she demanded.

I took a cautious, noisy sip. I regretted it instantly.

"OH GOD, IT BIT ME."

The woman snatched it from me and took a swig. "Tastes fine to me." she said dismissively.

"It tastes like death! Or WORSE than death! Like death would taste if it tasted like something really bitter and nasty!"

"It's a good cup of coffee!" replied the maid hotly.

Heads were turning to look at us. I shrank, and lowered my voice. "Can't I have a glass of fruit juice? Or cider?"

Her eyes glittered dangerously. They were small and blue, set deep in her red face. Her hair was greasy and pulled back untidily, and she had the look of someone who'd been working since last night with little sleep. "Cider's for the evenin' guests."

"Well… can I have some?" I wheedled.

She crossed her arms. "Cost ya four pennies extra."

Tightfisted. Old. Cow.

"Then can I just have some porridge or something? Nothing… you know… inedible?" I said, tipping the cup of coffee meaningfully.

It seemed I'd gone too far. Her nostrils flared angrily.

Oops.

"Fine." She said. "I'll get you yer oats." She snarled, and whirled around, tripping off angrily to the kitchen.

I sighed, and tipped back my chair, rocking back and forth with my toe on the table leg. "Craaaanky." I muttered. No one heard me.

Hot water here was more than I could afford, but they'd sold me a block of soap for cheap, and let me use the rain barrel out back if I promised to leave it drinkable. I'd managed to swab out my armpits and between my breasts, where stink tends to accumulate, and had soaped up my hair some, but it wasn't much like a bath in any sense of the word. I did manage to get most of the boat smell off me, though.

Boat, incidentally, smells like tar, sweat, and old fish.

It had been pretty raucous last night. I wasn't sure if it had been a party of anything, but from the sounds of it, (and the bleary expressions of the barmaids) it had gone on until late and everyone was nursing it off.

I had found the place just as the sun had started to set last night. After walking around aimlessly for several hours, I'd become what most seasoned world travelers would call hopelessly lost.

It seriously wasn't my fault that all the canals either looked the same, or ran in complicated figure eight patterns. And it was doubly not my fault that they were often the only way to get from point A to point B, so you had to use one of those shallow boats to get there, which I didn't have the  _money_  for and apparently the guards yanked swimmers out of the waters all the time.

Thank the Gods of war and wind it wasn't Burger. I would have had a heart attack.

Still, I'd managed to snag one of the guard's purses when he wasn't looking (What else were Rouge Skills for, anyway?) and that had held just enough cash to supplement my measly resources, which was sufficient for a night's stay at this cheap, poorly lit inn.

Oh well. I would have slept badly with or without a bug-infested mattress.

I drummed my fingers on the tabletop absently, then stopped when I noticed myself doing it. To keep occupied, I rested my chin in my hand and looked about the room.

There was a married couple seated at a table near the fire. The husband shoveled down his eggs and sausage with a single minded intensity that screamed there was no way there could be anything more important than filling his stomach with chicken embryos. The wife, a frightened looking woman wearing a headscarf and a threadbare coat, just picked at her breakfast, looking nervously around the whole time.

She kinda hurt to look at. I turned my head elsewhere.

Couple of guys near the fire. They were blinking a lot and wincing whenever they moved, so I figured they must have had a few last night. At the table next to me, closer to the window, was a dusty-looking blonde guy bent over his table with a cup of that horrible swill. He wasn't taking an interest in anything around him, just swirling it around in his hand and looking tired.

Boooring. Lessee, who else…

There were three guys seated near the windows. They looked less affected by the festivities from last night, although it appeared that they'd been drinking since daylight. Two were laughing over absolutely nothing, while the other just leaned back in his chair and attempted to burn holes in the table with his eyes.

I began jigging my leg up and down under the table out of sheer tedium.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I was terrified that somebody'd see me and say, "Hey…. Isn't that the girl what's on the run from that ninja training type place?" and then promptly drag me back to face my father. I'm not sure exactly why the imaginary do-gooder of my fantasies had that accent, but I was certain that that was what it would be like. Still, fear and dread can only hang onto you for so long before you stop flinching at every fast movement, and start rolling your eyes and muttering, "Come ON already."

Plus, I'd already promised myself that I wasn't going to think about that. Thinking about it only messed with my head, and got in the way. I could think about it later.

Yep. Wasn't going to think about it.

"Here y'are" Said the barmaid as she plunked down a bowl full of something gray in front of me. "That'll be seven pence."

Absolutely no steam rose from the meal in front of me, despite the fact that the room was rather chilly. Oh….. dear…

It looked like oyster vomit. I told her so.

Her lips went tight. "Either you give me seven pennies, or I'm calling the cook to throw you out on your ear, you ungrateful tramp!"

I gestured to the bowl of oatmeal, which was beginning to look quite embarrassed about itself. "Come on! Would YOU eat this?"

"I-am-happy-to-partake-in-whatever-the-establishment-gives-me!" she sniffed. Somehow I got the feeling she'd practiced that line, as it contained absolutely no contractions whatsoever, and came out as one unbroken stream. But she was beginning to creep up on the hazy line between annoyed, and cook-callingsy pissed off, so I beat a hasty retreat by grudgingly giving her the money and muttering that it was a crime to call that dish something that was descended from good, honest, oats.

She stalked off after I paid her, obviously glad to be rid of me. I stuck my tongue out at her back. The blonde man at the table next to me looked at me oddly. "What?" I snapped.

He shrugged and looked away, taking another sip of his coffee. As he shifted, a gold piece dropped out of the pocket of his battered green coat and clattered loudly on the stone floor.

The men in the corner perked up immediately. They resembled so many hungry stray dogs hearing a barrel of meat being opened ten miles away. The other guy apparently hadn't noticed yet that he'd attracted unwarranted attention, he just kept staring grimly into the distance, like he was a thousand miles away.

One man in the group in the corner, a guy with more beard than good looks, began whispering to one of his companions, a tall guy with red hair and a dirty shirt. I mean, come  _on_ , it had stains and everything. Possibly gravy. EW. The other man stayed quiet, like he wasn't even watching. He looked much more dangerous than the other two.

Beardy got up (an effort not really well described here, but I could say that it was like a hearthrug with a fondness for pastries slowly and mysteriously rising to attention), and swaggered over to the man next to my table.

The blonde's eyes flicked over to him without expression. He had a long, slightly bent nose perhaps from a previous break or some such, and as I said, dusty looking blonde hair that flopped in a long widow's peak over his eyes. He didn't look much older than me, but had this aura of being weary almost to death that made lines in his face that oughtn't to have been there. He looked about as likely to start a fight as an old dog that's been kicked around so many times that it's just learned to curl its tail to its belly and take what it gets. Just _looking_ at him made you want to feel sorry for him, and give him a good meal or something.

Beardy seemed intent on hassling him. "Hey Mister," he said, leaning heavily with his hands on the chair the across from the other man. "My friends 'n I are feelin' mighty poorly. How 'bout you buy us some drinks so we feel better?"

It was lame. It was pathetic. It was worse than lame and pathetic, that was the single worst rewording of, "Hey dude, can I have some money?" that I'd ever heard. The guy was smirking too, like he knew how flimsy it was, but he knew he didn't need A material because he'd beat the crap out of the poor guy anyway.

Behind him, Redhead and the quiet dangerous guy rose to their feet, the latter a little slower than his companion. Redhead had a huge shit-eating grin on his face. Obviously they'd done this sort of thing before.

I glanced around. The kitchen maids were exchanging knowing looks, and one by one they filed into the backroom. The rest of the people were quietly keeping their heads down and doing their best impressions of uninvolved citizenry just out for a cup of coffee and a sausage, not bothering you at all, we'll certainly look the other way, yes sir, what lovely weather we're having!

My eyes narrowed.

The blonde guy just looked at him a moment more, then went back to his coffee.

I was inwardly snickering, but Beardy bristled like a cat that's seen a mouse give it the finger. But there was a nasty glint to his eye that he'd been fully expecting this sort of thing, and had been rather waiting it. "Hey man," he said, leaning forward, "I said, aren't you going to buy us a round?"

The man he was referring to seemed to be trying out the Ignore-It-And-Maybe-It-Will-Go-Away approach to conflict, and looked no more disturbed by being heckled by a man whose neckhair could clothe and shelter all the inhabitants of a small country than would be a block of wood.

Beardy was shortly joined by his redheaded friend, and they shared a smirk. Redhead decided that now was the time to jump in and splash around a little. "Aren't you even going to answer the man?" he demanded. He had a high nasally voice, the kind usually thought of as belonging to sentient talking weasels, or salesmen. His nose was too long, and his teeth were tinged bright yellow.

As you can see, bastards are clearly identified by virtue of their being ugly. Keep that in mind.

Their victim finally responded.

"…Don't have any money." He had a rough voice, leathery and harsh almost, like he didn't use it much. It wasn't whiney or pleading or anything, he just said it.

"Then what's that down by your foot then?" said the exasperated jackass who'd last spoken.

The man blinked, then craned his neck over to look dutifully in the direction specified. A short, "…hm" sound escaped him as he bent over with an audible pop to his back to retrieve the coin, and return it to his pocket. Settling back into his seat, he picked up his coffee again.

Beardy and Redhead exchanged a confused look.  _Er. This isn't how it's supposed to go_ , said the look.  _Isn't he supposed to be telling us to sod off and then we can beat the snot out of him?_ it said on the way back.

"The hell," said Beardy, as comprehension dawned. "First you ignore us, and then you lie to us? That's not very nice." He cracked his knuckles meaningfully. He didn't get that look on his face that most people get when they crack their knuckles for the first time, which rather looks like, 'Oh  _shit_ , that hurts.' He seemed to be well acquainted with it.

"Yeah," said the Redhead for agreement's sake. And he pushed him, right there. Not hard enough to knock him off his chair, just enough to rock him back a little.

Time slowed.

Very deliberately, the blonde man set his cup down.

"Hey, listen to me when I'm  _talking_  to you" snapped Redhead again, and this time he shoved him, knocking him off of his chair and onto the floor. Beardy started laughing, and so did Redhead, high and delighted, a nasty sort of sound that made my teeth grind. He stepped forward and nudged him with his foot.

"Now what kind of pansy-assed loser  _is_  this guy?" he asked. "Not even fighting back. Hey man, you gonna fight back?" he asked the blonde, edgy, trying to provoke him. He drew his foot back for a real kick. "I said, aren't you gonna fight back, old guy?

The toe of his boot landed solidly on the blonde's ribs, hard and cruel. For his credit, he didn't cry out, only exhaled sharply and curled into himself to protect against further damage.

It was a lot like kicking a puppy.

Redhead laughed again, and made to boot him again.

"Hey, ugly" I said from behind him.

I had a line planned. It was the best, most cleverest line anyone has ever  _heard_. This line would be the high point of the  _century._

He turned, bewildered and angry to be interrupted.

"Ha! You looked!" I said, cheery and bright, and that's when I broke the chair over his head.

He dropped like a sack of rocks. Beardy swore loudly and lunged for me. I threw the splintered remnants of the chair away and readied myself. He planted a fist in my stomach before I grunted and punched him hard enough to break his jaw and most of his teeth.  _It's his mistake for clenching his mouth_ , I thought giddily, and the rush of blood to my head nearly overwhelmed me. He screamed, high and keening, and came at me one more time before I kicked him right in the throat.  _It's his mistake for fucking with_ me. He fell and didn't get up again.

A noise from behind me.

The other guy.

 _Shit_.

I spun around, fists ready, just in time to see the silent member of the group perfectly in position to slide a sword into my kidneys. He raised it higher, about to stab downwards-

ShitohshitohshitI'mGoingToDieHereInThisSTINKINGHoleAllForNOTHING.

His eyes rolled back in his head, and he dropped just like that.

I blinked. Through the roaring in my veins and the ache in my fists, I still had enough sense to realize what I was seeing.

The blonde guy, who'd happily let them kick the pie filling out of him, was glaring at the fallen man. He had a broken chair leg in one hand, and had an expression on like he was halfway glad he'd done it, and halfway wondering  _why_ he'd done it. I dimly recognized the chairleg as part of the one I'd broken.

I believe time might have very well stopped while I froze there, staring at him.

A commotion in the streets outside. Official sounding voices heading this way, as boats rushed up to the tavern and sloshed to a halt.

Crap. Someone had alerted the guard.

I was too geared up; I couldn't move. I had the same feeling I had the last time I fought- an uncontrollable urge to smash everything that moved and write my name in the sky with the force of my hands and feet. It was  _unnerving_ , this feeling, this cold, white-hot rage that glued me, panting to the spot.

 _This is the same as the last time,_ I thought frozenly.  _I can't…. I don't think I can stop. I wanna_ kill  _something._

_Oh god help._

The guy who'd saved me from a rather painful and certainly ignoble death heard the guards coming as well. He cursed, quietly, but a suitably decent curse all the same. He dropped the chair leg, and leaned over to hoist his traveling bag off of the floor. Turning, he grabbed me above my elbow, yanking hard. "Come on!" he said.

I didn't move. When he discovered that I apparently wasn't coming with, he stopped, and looked at my face. He went still.

"Listen" he said, and his tone was patient. Unhurried even. "Either you start moving now, or you'll spend the next month in a cell. And they don't treat women so good there."

That image burned itself all the way down to the bottom of my mind and kindled a flame of awareness. It efficiently broke my paralysis, but I felt like I was pulling out tree roots when I moved. We bolted towards the kitchens, him dragging me along by my elbow. We made it out the back door as the guards broke shouting into the main room, demanding to know who had broken up the place.

We were ducking down an alley by this time, running full out down the narrow passage. He'd let go of my arm, and chose instead to lead the way, jogging stiffly, his rucksack bouncing against his hip.

The alley ended on the edge of a canal, where a man with a messenger satchel was stepping into one of those funny shallow boats. My companion hoisted him out by his armpits and tossed him aside with no more thought and hesitation than someone taking a small, slightly stupid animal out of the way. He tossed the struggling, protesting man aside and jumped into the boat, which skipped across the water unsteadily. I was one jump behind him, panicking slightly as I nearly swamped the poor thing. I held the edges of the boat in a white-knuckled grip, crouching low as he swung the long length of wood into place and quickly began poling us down the canal with the hurried incompetence of the truly desperate.

I kept wanting to talk to him, to figure out why the hell he grew a spine only then, but the grim look on his face kinda discouraged that.

We vanished around a corner as the sounds of pursuit grew louder. I could hear them swearing at us as we left with the only means of transportation nearby.

He nailed the wall trying to take the next corner, and a wave of water soaked me to the knee, but after we made it a block or two down the canal, he swerved to the side of the canal and lunged onto the street.

I squawked and scrabbled after him, nearly wiping out on the last bit and going for a dunk in the canal. He looked back briefly, then jerked his chin in the direction that led to the outside of town before running again.

I hesitated. Why the  _hell_  should I go with him? I thought.

"Get…. THEM!" came the shout from behind me. It was ground-out of a throat already ragged from too much sprinting, from a short distance awayIt sounded like they were already tiring out, but damnit if they weren't going to keep trying.

Oh. That.

Sure, why not?

I shook the sweaty hair out of my eyes and went tearing off after my new, talkative best friend.

**0.-0.-0**


	3. Chapter 3

I'd like to say that we were chased out of town by an angry mob and that we escaped into the forest and were free to go our separate ways after mutual thank-yous were exchanged. I'd like to say that we ran like the wind, and had a good laugh about it too, and maybe even shared a lunch by a burbling creek while sopsy forest animals cheep-cheeped and hoo-hooed all around us. And he'd be all impressed with my skills, and think I was very attractive, and I'd thank him, but turn him down eventually because I was a lone warrior out to discover my way in life and didn't have time for love, and he'd cry a little and say he'd always remember me and he'd write his next play about me because of  _course_  he'd be a famous playwright from a big city with tons of money that he inherited but hadn't touched yet because he also wanted to find his way in the world. And then we would have a Connection and maybe he'd buy me dinner.

This did not end up happening.

First off, the guards didn't stop at the edge of town. They chased us all the way into the fucking woods, and then called up more patrols to sweep the area. I was still with whatshisface because I didn't have any of my stuff with me except for the purse I ripped off and the clothes on my back. And to top it all of, he hadn't thanked me  _once_. And if he wasn't going to, I sure as hell wasn't. Jerk.

The woods were not fun. I'd fallen into various streams and ditches along the way, walked into a tree once or twice, and thwapped in the face no less than three times before I realized that walking closely behind someone in a dense forest is not a good plan. I wasn't  _used_  to trees. Trees were supposed to be tall, limbless, smooth-barked and with a bunch of leaves up top. Not huge and craggy and mean and full of needles that fucking  _hurt_  when they hit you in the nose.

And he  _still_  hadn't apologized.

I rubbed my smarting face, and chucked a handful of moss at him. It fluttered in a graceful arc towards him before landing short. That made me even angrier. I was about to fling a rock in his general direction, but a snapped twig in the distance and the sound of voices made him freeze, then dart out a hand to drag me with him under a fallen tree.

I was getting sick of being dragged places. It had been fun and all the first time, but this was the  _fourth fucking time this had happened._

And why the hell were there so many goddamned patrols anyway?

We got behind it just in time to avoid being spotted by a squad of four men. Beneath the log it was earthy-smelling, just damp enough to make it unpleasant, and choked with moss and ferns. A beetle crawled up my leg. I managed to not claw my way out of my own skin. Barely.

The men carried halberds in the careless, swinging way of those who can afford to because they really know how to use the things. Luckily, from the way they were talking, it seemed they were after a huge monster of a man, and a young boy with him, probably members of the Dell Gang.

_Dell gang?_ I thought. _I'm in the what now?_

The other shoe dropped.

_Young_ boy?!

It was the perfect time to jump out of my hiding place and put some serious Hurt on with as much righteous indignation that I could muster, but the Man-Without-Name saw my mouth open to screech and acted immediately- by shoving my head down into the dirt. I snorted a few grams of leaf mold into my nostrils before he pushed down harder and ground a  _shut up_  right into my ear.

_I am going to murder him,_ I mused calmly in my head. Sadly, murdering involved moving, and moving meant throwing off the extremely _heavy_ person on top of me and exposing myself to the guard, so instead I focused all of my energies into somehow sweating enough to reek up his coat for life.

Revenge through body odor. Oh yeah.

The squad left, meandering away through the trees, talking about how they were itching to get their hands on at least a  _few_  members of the gang, and collect the bounty.

Once they were out of sight and earshot, he let go, rising to his feet with a pop to his back that even I heard.

I glared at him. Then I spat out a wad of leaves. Then I glared some more.

He had the decency to look embarrassed. "Sorry," he said awkwardly, pulling at the strap of his satchel. "Didn't want them to see us."

I stood up, brushed myself off, and then stretched my arm behind my head, going for a nonchalant look. This was somewhat dampered by the moss hanging from my left eyebrow. I twitched it off, and raised the other one as if to say,  _Well, what now?_

Was I still speaking to him? No. No I wasn't.

He nodded in a direction that might have been southwestmcnortheast for all I knew. "There's a river that way. If we follow it, we'll hit a city."

"Which city?" I asked before I could stop myself. Damnit!

He looked back. "Don't know. A big one, maybe."

"Ugh…" I said, dragging my fingers through my hair. "Yeah. Fine. Let's go."

He didn't acknowledge my response or anything, just waded off into the trees. His horrible green coat made him blend right in, and I could only follow his blonde head as it bobbed through the undergrowth. Stupid coat. Stupid blonde head. Stupid TREES.

Why, I thought as I wiped my forehead with the back of one extremely dirty hand, am I still following him?

Because you don't know where the hell you're going. Because you don't know how far away it is. Because without him you would have never heard those patrols coming.

….

Because you left all of your  _stuff_ back at the inn with that cow of a waitress and her squirrelly boss.

Well  _FINE_ then, I snarled back at my head.

I was tired. We'd been out here for Soa-knows-how-long, running from cover to cover, trying to not get nailed by some over-eager militia. Once we'd made it out of time, I'd felt _good_. Better than good. Everything seemed to have the volume turned down, and I was carefully forgetting how very close I'd come to something….. very, very bad. Nothing was on my mind other than how great it felt to kick ass and get away with it scott-free, and I was keeping it that way.

Then there was a rumbling in the ground.

I, of course, stood and stared like an idiot. Whatshisname, being taller than me by a head and a half, saw them, and dropped behind a pile of rocks. Was he saw I wasn't following, he grabbed my leg and jerked me to the ground.

They were huge. They were built like giant armored rats, and their heads swayed from side to side as they ran; low to the ground and  _fast_. Their riders bent low over their necks, each with a spear slung over their backs and a horn on each belt. They looked like they were long used to both their mounts and their objective,

And, apparently, completely friggin' blind, because they ran right past us without missing a beat.

Not that it helped matters any. Ever since then it had been a constant stream of run, hide, bitch. At least in my case. He really just ignored me. I still didn't even know his name, and he didn't know mine. It had never really come up though. Mentally, I referred to him as Mullet.

(He didn't have one. Not really. But he was awfully close. I wondered if he stayed up at night, pondering whether to take the plunge and go all out. Most likely he drank a lot. Wrote sonnets. Collected split ends.)

A stick cracked under my heel. Mullet flinched at the noise, and looked back.

"Just me." I said. "Sheesh."

"Sorry," he said, dropping his eyes. They were a weird sort of blue, the kind you only find outside of nature, like those blue bottles you sometimes could buy from merchants, that made your eyes dilate and your pulse race and made you forget about any pain that might have held you back. Lotta and I had tried potions once together- we hadn't dared touch the fogs. We swallowed six each, gagging at the greeny-ice flavor, and waited for some sort of result. Now  _that_  was an afternoon to remember. Not that I do, much. All I really recall is waking up on top of somebody's roof with a dead chicken and Lotta's foot in my mouth.

Mullet didn't look like popping a few healing fogs could fix him though. He walked like someone who'd been through a meatgrinder and left far too many chunks behind.

I jumped onto a topic that had been bothering me.

"This… Dell Gang," I said, sidestepping a root, "Who are they? And why do they think we're in it?"

"Bandits," he replied, pausing by a tree. "Good ones." His breath was coming somewhat harder to him. Figured. He'd been running around more than me. He looked around, "Let's rest."

I was glad to. I slumped down onto a log, letting my hands dangle off of my kneecaps. It was colder here in the clearing, because while the sun had a chance to break through, it was thin, and chillier than back home. All I had on was the thin shirt I'd had on at breakfast, and soaked with sweat and mud as it was, it didn't do much to keep me warm. I shivered, and slapped a bug off of my shoulder. "How good?" I demanded.

Mullet tilted his head to the side slightly, a motion that had an enormous range of possible meanings. "They've made the merchant trains around here pretty nervous. The Seseauan King's promised a bounty of five thousand gold marks."

Five thousand. I swallowed. "That's big, huh."

"Yeah." He leaned against a bent tree, crossing his arms.

"That'd explain Furni's uh, touchiness." I remarked.

His eyes flicked towards me, expressionless. "That and the fact that the last time Dell's gang went there, they busted up an inn and skipped town."

Hot, buzzing annoyance. "That wasn't my fault."

He shrugged. I  _hate_  shrugging.

"Fine then," I snapped. Anger came to me surprisingly quickly, and I embraced it. "You'd rather I'd just gone on eating my breakfast while they beat the shit out of you for no good reason? Hell, they could have killed you!" I was sitting bolt upright now, hands in fists on my knees. I was fucking well pissed  _off._

Mullet's eyes flickered a bit, and I caught a look of irritation in them, brief as it was. "They wouldn't have killed me," he said, and I swear his voice had a touch of dryness. "They would've knocked me around and taken my money, but that'd been it. End of story."

I couldn't believe it. He was annoyed with me.  _He_ was actually annoyed with  _me_. And while we'd been bouncing around the woods all afternoon, he hadn't said anything.

"And you're okay with that?" I shot back. "Getting beat up in some shit little hotel because you didn't want to cause a fuss?" I brought a hand down on my knee, hard. "Well, fuck me rotten,  _you're welcome_."

He rubbed his face, looking tired. "Not that I'm ungrateful. But I would have survived."

"Whatever." I said, disgusted. I wrapped my arms around myself and rubbed them for warmth. The sun was moving behind the clouds, and the wind was picking up. "Let's go." I suggested tersely, and rose to my feet.

He stood up with a creak and dusted his coat off, not looking at me. That's right, jackass, I thought viciously. Be ashamed. Only that's when I realize that he wasn't not looking at me out of guilt, but because there was something in that direction. Several somethings.

My eyes narrowed, "What are  _those_?"

 

**0.-0.-0**

They were adorable. In a really horrible, terrifying way.

The argument was long forgotten by this point. Well, not so much forgotten as much as put aside until I could verbally castrate the bastard, but it was no longer in the spotlight. These things were.

Whatever they were, they were green. They were also warty, small, multi-legged, and scrabbled across the ground in a confused huddle. They mewled like tiny motherless kittens, small, beady black eyes screwed up in their wretched faces. They looked like miniature, hunchbacked saplings, but only mere inches tall.

Mullet had gone silent, and watched them with a flat expression that I could only take to mean that he hadn't a clue what they were. I didn't either, but I was slightly more curious, and so that's why I walked right over and picked one up.

As I turned it over in my hand, it grumbled in a whiny sort of way while its siblings crowded around my feet, stroking my ankles. One hooked a root around my laces and started pulling itself up onto my boot with a distinctly focused air.

"Awww, he likes me." I grinned, letting it wrap its green roots around my thumb for support. Its long leafy neck stretched closer towards me, making widgy little grunting noises. "They're kind of cute. You ever seen them before?" I turned to show it to Mullet.

He squinted at it from across the clearing. "I don't think... Kinda look like…. Hm. No" and shook his head. A wind whipped up with a sudden coolness, and he pulled his coat tighter, hands shoved in the pockets. His lips quirked a bit, and he lost that guarded, defensive look he'd had on earlier. "Cute. Yes. Very ugly. Yes."

I made a face at him, and jiggled the cute-but-ugly-freak-of-nature in my palm, where it chittered louder, and hugged my thumb for dear life. "I think he's adorable. I'll keep him! And name him Terry- FUCKING  _OW_."

"What?" asked Mullet, jerking to attention.

"The little bastard bit me!" I snapped, and sure enough, it had bent down its shriveled little neck and was sinking horribly sharp teeth into the base of my thumb and sucking hard. I jerked it off with my other hand and hurled it away with a hiss of breath, where it collided with a tree trunk and started screaming angrily. Swearing, I kicked the other tree-beasts off of my ankles and stomped away.

Mullet didn't have anything that would normally distinguish a smirk on his face (actual movement of facial muscles for one thing) but the bastard was smirking. "Not going to keep Terry?"

"Shut up." I growled. "I've never been here before." I brought my hand up to my mouth and sucked the blood off- no telling if that thing was venomous or not.

His lips quirked again, and then his teeth showed a bit in a grin- a grin! I thought- and was about to say something more when an enormous Other Something erupted out of the trees with a high curling screech and landed a blow on my ribs hard enough to knock me back three yards and to the ground.

I landed with a crunch in the middle of the pile of babies, who regrettably scrabbled out of the way just in time, and the crunch was just my various bones and organs complaining in the only way they knew how. The babies weren't screaming anymore- they were, well, purring.

Mom  _snarled._

She was easily taller than Mullet and me, and basically a larger, greener, knobblier and rage-filled version of the babies, and all of her enormous root-tentacles writhed on the ground like they were aching to wring my neck, which they probably were. Her face was a wrinkled green mass of hate, and her eyes were just black holes above a flapping gash of a mouth. The mouth had teeth. Big teeth.

Oh fuck you, Terry, I sighed mentally.

I halfway rose to my feet before she was on me again- and she was  _fast_. I managed to land a punch on her trunk that splintered the wood and made her howl, but she wasn't affected at all otherwise and hit me alongside the head with a flailing branch that sent me twirling back onto the ground again in a red haze of pain. I landed on my feet, skidding back in momentum with one hand clutching the ground and the other onto my head.

_Get up_ , I mentally hissed.  _Get up and kill it before it nails you again._

The babies scrabbled onto my legs and waist, struggling to sink their teeth in. Some got in the way of Mom's next attack, which made her hesitate, which I guess is the only thing that saved me because that's when Mullet dove in and grabbed my shoulder and hauled me to my feet.

"Run," he shouted as he swept off the tree-babies. "Just run!"

I wasn't going to argue this time. I ran like hell, and so did he, and the tree-family didn't follow us.

 

**0.-0.-0**

"Why is it," I panted, head down and my hands on my knees, "that whenever you say run, I end up running?"

We were well away from the scene of the (second) crime, resting by a tiny spring with enough ferns bent greedily over it to render it almost invisible.

"Quit getting into trouble," grumbled Mullet, giving me a look that was almost annoyed, but in a ha-ha, we're-exchanging-banter-and-not-actually-mad way. (Trust me, I could tell the difference. Dad spent most of his life being annoyed with me.) "And maybe you wouldn't need to run."

"Oh, easy for you to say." I quipped, then flopped down on my belly to drink from the spring. It was cold and clean and straight from the ground. As my thirst eased, I became increasingly aware of how horribly hungry I was.

Mullet went to the other side of the spring and s-l-o-wly sat down. He also leaned forward to palm a handful of water, and it took four before he was done. When that was over, he leaned his head back against a tree and closed his eyes.

"What the hell were those things, anyway?" I asked, sitting up so as to talk to his face.

He shrugged without opening his eyes. He still looked tired- but less worn. Not that that statement makes much sense. He'd lost that kicked-dog look he'd had in town, which was a good thing I supposed. "Moss Dresser, I think. They're rare. Usually don't attack people unless you make 'em angry."

"Like I did?"

"Like you did."

I made a face at him (which he didn't see) and fell onto my back, enjoying the feeling of cool moss on my skin and the kiss of sunlight that drifted down from above. Trees aren't all that bad, I mused. As long as you don't run into them. Or molest their children.

A thought occurred to me.

"Where are the patrols?" I asked.

His eyes opened and he blinked once, caught in the same peaceful moment that I had been. "Ah," he said, then scratched his ear. "I guess they… headed back."

"Well  _finally,_ " I breathed, then looked back at the canopy overhead. The bit there between the branches looked like a bunny. Eating a bear.

"Yes." He said, then exhaled a long moment. To my surprise, he hnn'd a bit, almost like a laugh. "Wasn't sure you were going to last much longer."

"Ha  _very ha,_ " I sneered. "I was  _born_  to fight, mister, I could've knocked 'em into next week if I'd had the chance." The words sounded hollow as hell, but I didn't care. I stretched a foot out and plucked a flower with my toes. My sandals were battered and smeared with mud, and the strap on one seemed about ready to quit denying it and die already.

"Oh. Yes. So you keep saying," he murmured, and shifted a bit as he settled down to get comfortable. Overhead birds were flitting around screaming at each other via birdsong, which I used to find adorable until I learned that it was really just a way to guard their spot and pick up chicks. Stupid birds.

I bent my leg back and dangled the flower over my face, trying to catch it with my teeth. I managed to bite half a petal when Mullet, sounding guilty for breaking the silence, said, "Sorry about this morning."

I blinked, and looked his way. He looked a bit embarrassed actually, and wasn't looking at me. Well, not really. His face was pretty impassive and he  _was_  looking at me in a muzzy, I-need-a-nap way, but it would've been cuter to say that he'd been looking at me with humiliation and shame for ever hesitating to apologize. Much cuter. He shrugged. "Don't like to start fights. Don't really like finishing them."

I stared at him, and sat up. "That is the stupidest thing that I have ever heard."

He just looked at the ground, all awkward and silent again, swimming around in too-long bones and an overlarge green coat with nowhere to go.

"But thank you," I said, flopping back onto the ground. I waved a hand like a king, or an emperor might, "You are forgiven," I proclaimed.

And he actually kind of laughed, and everything seemed okay.

**0.-0.-0**

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I WAS SIXTEEN. that might explain my narrator's sudden weird omniscience.

" _We're working on your blocks tomorrow. And you still punch like you're kneading bread."_

_I didn't even pause as I rummaged through the cupboard looking for an end of bread to put my honey on. "Can't, Dad. Geary and I were gonna head out on the reef tomorrow." Aha! Success! I pushed aside a sack of brown flour and found it. And it was hardly even gnawed on! I balanced it on top of the jar of honey, closed the cupboard, and set it on the counter._

_A silence from him. He was seated behind me, awkwardly it seemed, like he was far too big and apt to break things than our spindly furniture would tolerate. He'd always seemed that way to me; as fast and huge and sudden as a storm front, or fuck, I don't know, a Big Scary Thing, blowing in and out, leaving nothing behind. He had a cup of steaming tea in one hand, a sack of which that had been a gift from the neighbors._

_He broke the silence brutally. "No. You're going to come up to the deck and you're going to be early. For once." He finished, darkly. Still mad, then. I hadn't shown up on time for the past week._

_I flashed him an annoyed look, scraping honey on my bread. "Dad, there haven't been any pirates for months. It's winter. We don't have to worry about being in shape 'till spring." A line of honey had run down to my wrist, I paused and licked it off in the most dignified manner possible. "Plus Ferr's sister just had her baby, and I really wanted to see it and-"_

_His hand hit the table, making our whole creaky house shudder; a hard, meaty_ thud _. It was a miracle he hadn't cracked the table in half, but he was far too good to overdo it like that. He only succeeded in making me flinch and freeze, drop the jar of honey, and watch it crack. It oozed onto the floorboards slowly._

" _This is more important than being with your friends, or playing with_ babies _Claire." He said coldly. "It's time you learned that." He relaxed, as if he hadn't done anything, as if the atmosphere didn't have the feel of the air before a storm, and took a drink of his tea. He shot me a glance, and suddenly he wasn't just Haschel, the town head, the guy who laughed and took in a drink with the other men once a week. He was the military leader of the entire Island, and could break my arms without batting an eye._

_Even if I was his kid._

" _You'll be there, Claire." He said, and rose to stretch and head outside._

_I bent and tried to mop up the spilled honey. I nicked myself with my clumsy hands on the sharp edges of the glass, and cursed when the blood dripped into what I was trying to salvage. I gave up and walked off, leaving the mess for someone else to clean up._

 

**0.-0.-0**

That night, after several relatively boring hours of hiking, we camped alongside a river. Dinner was more jerky and some wild onions from a large patch we'd found on the way. (We did catch a rabbit, but neither of us could cook much and Mullet didn't have any pots or pans, so what we ended up with was blackened half-raw over-spiced rabbit on a stick. We each took a bite and promptly chucked it in the river.)

The clouds drifted away and the night was clear, which made it even colder. I didn't sleep much, but Mullet tossed me his coat out of some bizarre sense of helpfulness, so that helped with the cold. It really wasn't enough though, and I swore that night that when I got to Deningrad I was going to buy an entirely new outift consisting entirely of fur and wool. Providing I could find the money. Remember. Still financially fucked.

When morning sluggishly illuminated the eastern sky, my joints felt like they'd rusted over during the night and my legs seemed to have stopped receiving blood flow for several hours. I heaved myself to my feet to throw some more wood on the fire, and used a chunk of bark crusty with pitch to get it going. Waking up Mullet was as easy as poking a toe in his back until he twitched, blinked, then rose to his feet with a creak. He headed to the riverside to wash up. He must have brought a razor too, because when he came back he was clean-shaven and much more awake looking. He even whistled a bit as he bent down to return his razor and mirror to his bag.

Breakfast was what was left of the jerky, and of course, plenty of wild onions. I munched on some as I washed my face and neck in the horrifically cold water of the river. Tiny and sweet and fragrant- but not an actual breakfast.

_Eggs,_ I thought wistfully.  _Eggs and fresh bread and mango and gallons of sweet tea._

I crunched my last onion in my teeth, shook my wet hair out, and headed back to camp.

It was little more than a hollow in a jumpled pile of enormous rocks left by some glacier eons ago. Glaciers weren't something you heard of every day back home, but every so often some explorer would jot down notes in a travelogue, and there you'd have it. It was sandy in the middle, protected from the wind, and kept the light of our fire visible only to us. The river roared by mere yards away, a constant presence that made your ears ring after a while. It was iron grey and deep, treacherous looking as the sneer on a one-eyed cat.

I hopped up onto one of the taller rocks, and slid down the other side on my butt. I landed without any sort of grace on the sand, and rolled to my feet. Mullet glanced up to check, and then went back to repacking his travel bag. It was hard to tell from his features, but he seemed better rested.

"Morning, Mullet." I said. He'd seemed all right with the name last night. A little taken-back for a second, but he shrugged and let it lie. Besides, he was now and forever Mullet to me, despite whatever his real name might have been. "Water's cold."

I  _must_  have been tired. I was on the same word-usage level as him.

"Yes," he replied. "Didn't drink it, did you?"

"Nah," I said. Who knew what had shit or died in the river upstream, and I didn't want to spent the next week finding out the hard way.

He tightened a strap on his bag, then dropped it onto the sand with a thump. He then leaned over to swipe his coat off of the ground from where I'd left it, and shook it out. He slid one arm in, then the other, and when the whole green heavy thing settled onto his shoulders he relaxed a little, as if the coat was a part of him and he was glad to have it back. Soa knew I didn't want it- it was warm, yes, but it was scratchy and hard and smelled like he'd been sleeping in it for sixth months. Which, for all I knew, he had been.

He stood up straight, all the kinks rolling out of him like water off a duck's back, and pulled his satchel back over his shoulder. "I'll get you to Deningrad, like I said," he said quickly. "Then you can figure out where you're going."

"All right," I replied, and stood up, twirling my arms around like I was gonna fight, instead of trudging through mostly empty forest for several hours. I then bent over and stretched my legs, then squawked and ran to catch up, because Mullet was leaving, heading upriver over the rocks. I didn't run far, as I didn't want to wrench an ankle, but when I yelled to wait, he paused for a moment, then continued as I caught up. The wind was stirring the dusty blonde strands of hair over his face, and he ran a hand through them to get them briefly out of the way.

"How far is it, you think?" I asked then.

He looked up and ahead, his eyes far away for a moment as he strove to recall. "We head upriver a ways…. Then there's a bridge, eventually. The road leads to the city." He thought it over a moment more. "We should get there by this afternoon."

"…All right."

"What?"

"Will we stop for lunch?"

"We don't have any food."

"Can we find someone who does and take theirs?"

 

**0.-0.-0**

The Mille River (or the Big Milly, as everyone called it) runs down from Kashua Glacier in a roundabout fashion through the Evergreen Forest before finally emptying into the sea at Furni Harbor. It's one fast body of water, and tricky as hell in some parts, but large stretches of it are actually quite calm and navigable. It pauses in a great blue lake in the northeastern quadrant of the forest, where a logging town, Neet, appeared one day and amassed quite a bit of wealth in a few short years.

Because of Neet's newfound economic importance, and because the recent King was desperately trying to drag Mille Seseau out of a depression that meant that nobody had enough money, ever, a great public works project went in place to build a fully functioning road between Deningrad and the logging city of Neet. This project did an excellent job of providing work, and also neatly disguised the fact that the Royal House was as corrupt as it was possible to get, and had been that way for a long time.

Maybe it was because the last good king had left only a plain-faced bookish daughter and a pack of greedy advisors in charge when he died. Perhaps it was because the new King was a foreigner from Tiberoa, who enjoyed fine dinners and pleasing diversions over tax disputes. But in any case, Mille Seseau was a boil waiting to be lanced, and believe me, I didn't want to be there when the pus came squirting out.

It would be years before the King's advisors would finally get up their courage and instigate the bloodiest civil war the Continent had ever seen. They'd kill the King and hole up in the Castle for months, trying to make Mille Seseau into the Free Republic of the North, only they would have trouble with stopping bickering long enough to choose a leader. All the while the plain, bookish daughter would be in hiding with her two tiny daughters, gathering supporters with her sheer intelligence, charm and incredible oratory skills. She would make an army that loved her completely, and would march straight into Deningrad to take back what was rightfully hers. The Free Republic never had a chance.

Theresa was plain, yes. But she'd become the best Queen in all three countries on the continent. She was wise, she was clever, and she was one of the most charming people many would ever meet. She'd take the city by storm- creating schools and orphanages, and even planning the world's first major library that would put Deningrad on the map as a place of learning and sophistication.

But, this was way before the idea of assassinating the King would occur to anyone, and Deningrad wasn't the starkly honorable place it would become. It would take a long time for Theresa to stamp out the city's less attractive venues- but when I first sauntered into it, it was a place where you could buy anything and anyone. It was a place where women stayed with their men or in a brothel, no exceptions. It was where you didn't cheat at dice if you didn't want your corpse leaking fluids onto the floor. It was where you kept your head down and didn't talk to  _anybody_. Deningrad was a cold and vicious and uncompromising place, that's to be sure, but it was and still is the largest and most beautiful city I've ever seen.

That's not what I said when I walked in through the front gates. What I actually said was, "Holy shit this place is HUGE!"

And it was. It really, really was. Mullet nodded in agreement, and I turned to see what he was looking at. My jaw dropped.

The Crystal Palace… how the fuck do I describe it? You've seen it, everyone's seen it, it's only the most famous piece of architecture on the planet. You know how it looks. How it looms over the city at a crazy angle, like it's about it fall and shatter at any minute. How fantastic terraces and towers jut out of it every so often. How the entire surface  _gleams_ with this wild and clear blue light that you can't tear your eyes from. It's sharp and deadly and brutally beautiful, and I loved it from the first moment I saw it. Even Mullet was caught up; I caught him gazing up at it with this soft faraway look in his eye that seemed entirely out of place.

"It's so different," he murmured, and I barely heard him. "So different…"

I watched him, then, with the entire city buzzing around us, a thousand sights and smells and sounds in one small place. He looked like he'd forgotten all about me.

Well that would make it easier.

 

**0.-0.-0**

Don't hate me. Please. Yes, he'd saved my life twice, and I'd saved his, well, money and general well-being once. Yeah, he'd looked after me the entire way here for no real reason other than he had one hell of a sense of obligation.

But I had to do it, believe me.

I hate goodbyes. Never been good at them.

His head turned just as I slipped out of view. He was saying something that I couldn't catch, and then a look of confusion cross his face, but then I was well out of sight and walking as quickly and unobtrusively as I could down a side-alley. He didn't see me. I know he didn't.

I should have felt a lot worse about leaving him like that.

I didn't, though.

What I felt bad about was picking his pockets of every semi-valuable thing he owned before I vanished.

Shit happens.

 

**0.-0.-0**


	5. Chapter 5

Okay. So this was the second major city that I'd been in since leaving home. Yeah, it was bigger, fancier, and scarier- but it couldn't possibly be as much of a fiasco as the last time, right?

Right?

Shit.

I was fleeing.

Again.

I skipped from alley to alley, down one busy street to the next until I was damned sure that, short of divine intervention, Mullet was never going to find me. I didn't want to have to explain just why I felt I had to take all of his money- the look he would give me for one, and the subsequent breakage of my limbs.

Plus, you know, it'd be all awkward. And stuff.

He'd actually had a good chunk of cash on him, which meant that he  _did_  have the sense to lie to those morons back in Furni. Nothing spectacular, but I was pretty sure it was more than enough to buy me warm clothes, a place for the night and a way of getting out of here. I'd already bought the most decadent sweetie-bun of my life from a roadside stand, and the subsequent sugar rush was making me increasingly …confident.

Even Deningrad's murky alleyways were imposing. The entire city was made of blue and gray stone. The streets were composed of huge, intricately cut flagstones with nary a knifeblade of space between them. Men and women and animals of all sorts milled around in vast throngs, talking and cursing, buying and selling, or hell, just  _existing_. Like one old guy, just sitting on a set of steps with a hot pie. Steam curled out of it like smoke as he ate, and he got the filling on his beard.

Black Gods, I was starving. And not just for food- but this all of this; being completely surrounded by people, the taste of an entirely new world; a gigantic city-universe with a thousand different stories. It was time for  _me_  to inhale the steam of this new life and to get its juicy meaty filling on  _my_ beard.

Or something like that.

Oh, and there were pigeons. Lots of pigeons. They just kind of intently bob-oddled all over the place, and while I really wanted to chase them, I didn't, because it might have looked weird.

Hell, I wanted to absorb this.

I paused outside a small café to look over the city, leaning against a railing as I absently picked up on a conversation inside.

"-Yeah, Furni was hit again. Busted up a city block and stole the Mayor's best Runner," said one raspy voice.

"Was it Dell himself?"

"Either him or the Jackal. Heard a guy say that it was the whole gang, said Dell just rode in and set fire to the place, then rode out again on the Mayor's Runner, laughing his head off."

They were two men talking, old and frail looking, each dressed soberly in blues and greys. They each had cups of coffee, and expressions so very gossip-hungry that they belonged more on my younger cousins.

A younger man with a muffin on a plate a table over broke in. "! I heard it was just two guys from his gang! The entire Furni garrison chased 'em into the woods, and now the King's gonna send the whole  _cavalry_  into the Evergreen to rub out the Dell Gang for good!"

He stopped, excited. I made like I was tightening my sandal strap and not just eavesdropping shamelessly as the two older men considered this new information carefully.

"…can't be. No way Furni'd make that much a fuss for just two guys," said one finally, taking a delicate sip of coffee. "I mean, I know they're jumpy these days, but still…"

"And how do you explain the missing Runner?" interjected the second old guy, looking triumphant.

The younger man glowered. He seemed upset that his big news wasn't being taken as seriously as he'd hoped. "I thought Dell'd stolen it last month," he said mulishly.

"No, he stole it  _this_  month!" replied the second old man loudly. "And the Jackal was with him!"

The conversation was losing me by this point. Giving up, I walked nonchalantly away (I was hungry, tired, and filthy enough to grow kelp in my hair, but I could still manage to be nonchalant.) I was almost grateful to this Dell guy (or the Jackal, whoever he was with his odd name) for making it so there'd be no stories to follow me. Certainly, I was impressed. He'd pissed off enough people to make my little frassle in Furni seem like a drop in the pond. People only figured that it had to have been him because no one else would be crazy enough.

I'll thank him sometime, I promised myself as I ambled down the street in broad daylight, hands in my pockets. The sun was shining down like it wasn't the beginning of autumn, and it made even the sootiest buildings  _sparkle_. If I ever meet him, I added.

**0.-0.-0**

I found an apple stand somewhere along a quieter street, and paid for it with another one of Mullet's smaller coins. I'd had apples before, but only rarely. It was small, sour, and had a rotten-sweet bruise, but the juice, the smell, and the texture made me remember so many things at once.

Rouge Island had a smuggling deal with a small number of trading ships that passed through our waters. They'd let us have our pick of whatever cargo they had in return for what little we produced. The Islands were low on anything but sand and goats, but the smugglers did value our supplies of fish, and a special kind of perfume that we harvested from a native flower. In return we got apples, salted beef, silk, ironwork, and books.

The books had always made me the happiest. It was through them that I'd learned of the cities of the Continent, and some history. There was even a book of fairy tales, and it contained stories of dragon knights and cruel fairies and floating cities in the sky that made me want to find a dragon,  _any_  dragon, and make it cart me around while I performed daring deeds.

What can I say? I was kind of a lonely kid.

I'd only found them because I was running out of new places to hide from Dad, and there they had been, in the perfect spot where no one would look.

Lotta  _loved_  apples. Every time a shipment came in, she'd do her best to wheedle some away from whoever had managed to procure them, and she'd snarl at me like a hell beast if I tried to snag some of hers. Her mother knew how to cook them too, and on very rare occasions I'd be able to try some of the best shit  _of your life_  that she made with them.

Lotta's mother hadn't been from Rouge, originally. She was Serdian born and bred, with blonde hair and green eyes. It happened occasionally. Dad didn't think much of anyone who left the island; he said that if they were so eager to visit the continent, then they might as well stay there. He said a lot of things like that. But Lotta's dad had gone to Serdio many years ago by hiring himself out on a merchant ship. He was a good fighter, and people had been sad to see him go, but he did return a few years later, with Seria, his wife.

People were considerably cool to her. A lot of blonde-haired and white-skinned pirates had tried to take a chunk out of our Island, and the memories ran deep. And when she gave birth to a girl with the look of our people, but with the light hair and eyes of hers, the mutterings spread far.

Lotta didn't have a lot of friends growing up.

I finished the core, and tossed it over a wall as I meandered further down the streets. The sun was going down, and it lit up the Crystal Palace like a great spear made of fire and ice. All around, the snow on the mountains glowed orange. I shoved my hands in my pockets, my head ducked down, my shoulders drawn up, and kept walking.

Dad and me were Islander through and through. Dad himself was short, gnarled, and as dark as teakwood, and I stuck out like a sore, brown thumb here in the great white north. It still threw me for a loop, seeing that much fair skin on display.

Kids pick up on things fast. Their parents distrusted Seria because she was a Northerner, and all Northerners were pirates or skinflint misers who'd never give you a fair deal. And so Lotta was never really accepted at best, and at worse, there were days when they'd all crowd around her and ask why her hair was such an awful color, or if her mom's parents had ever killed anybody.

Lotta would try not to cry, but she wasn't good at that. Then, in tears, she'd try to fight them, but she was always outnumbered, and she'd always lose.

At least until I punched one in the nose just like old Keys had taught me, and screamed at him to go away or I'd tell my Dad and he'd break his teeth with his  _face_.

Lotta said later she'd loved me for it right then and there. Just that easily.

They kicked our asses anyways, but at the end of it, when Lotta and I were both sprawled out on the sands with lumps on our heads the size of eggs, we decided that we could be very good friends indeed.

I liked Lotta because she had a wicked sense of humor, she didn't care that my Dad didn't want me having too many distractions around, and because she could do that ridiculous bendy thing where you look like a pretzel. Lotta liked me because I was quiet and kind of crazy and because she had the most enormous crush in the  _world_  on Gehrich. And I totally made fun of her for it.

_Green eyes and white teeth and skin that burned bright red instead of browning. Long clever fingers and pointy elbows, and a smile that melted you down and turned you inside out and made you feel good about yourself._

Something felt like a thousand bees were trapped in my head and my ears and just behind my eyeballs.

It hurt.

I was stopped, head bowed, jaw tight, right in the middle of the sidewalk as people hurried by me.

It ... _hurt_.

Gut hurt. Teeth and bone hurt. Hurt deep inside and you look down, and you're rotting through the middle. Grey meat and  _pus_.

I was going to cry.

I was going to cry right here in the middle of this crowd for everyone to see and there was nothing I could do about it. I could feel the pressure building behind my eyes and in my throat, and the hot rush of liquid that meant tears on the way. I could feel something cracking inside of me that was moldy and foul and should not be let out because then...

_You killed her and you ended her and you made her into meat because you were angry at someone and you killed her you felt her die and it was very fast and you enjoyed it for a very brief time and you know you did you killed_

Curled through me like smoke, like red moist smoke, all hot and bitter and rosy-metallic, something alive and awake and aware and

I struck.

The rock crumbled around my fist. Long cracks ran up and down from all sides of it. All around, the pigeons exploded into the air. Their wings made sounds like sheets flapping in the breeze, like flags on a battlefield in a story old Keys used to tell, and the people around me gawked.

I withdrew my hand with a crunch. Pieces of masonry fell out and scattered on the ground like bits of broken teeth and bone fragments.

I relaxed. It had been a clean blow. Dad had taught me how to use my technique to pound through stone, but I'd rarely been able to do it.

My eyes were dry.

Turning quickly on my heel, I pushed my way past the shocked and curious crowd, hands shoved deep in my pockets. I found an alley, and vanished down it as swiftly as I knew how.

**0.-0.-0**

We were lying down, tangled up like sleeping puppies, my head on her stomach and her legs hooked around mine. We were napping in the tiniest hiding place we could find, an old forgotten hollow in the eaves of some house.

The heat was making me sleepy. I snuggled deeper into her stomach without thinking, eliciting an 'urk' from her.

"What time is it?" Lotta asked muzzily. The warmth was making her hair curl more than usual, and it stuck to her head with sweat in some places where it wildly stuck out in others.

"Umm..." I said reluctantly.

I didn't want to think about it.

"We're late enough." I said finally.

From far away, at the training platform, I heard Dad start yelling. I cringed, and turned my face into Lotta. She giggled, and petted my head.

"Claire, no, don't worry. He can't find us here, " said Lotta soothingly. "And later, we'll just say we lost track of time." Her hands slipped down and pinched both of my ears lightly. I

squeaked, and shook out of it while she laughed at me.

Her words sounded good. Deep down I knew that I was far too late to escape any punishment lighter than a hard look and a few biting words. But I was sleepy, and she was my friend, and we were both sick of endless practice.

"Okay," I murmured, and I began to drift down once more.

She chuckled. "Sheesh, Claire, you sleep all the time." Lotta shifted, then scritched my scalp as a comfort. "What do you do all night?"

Train. I wanted to tell her. Train. Pray to the War God. Cook dinner.

"...not sleep?" I suggested instead. Lotta pulled a face and cuffed me, but she was about to go to sleep as well. The heat wrapped us up in a blanket and pulled us under, and we slept in the dusty eaves of that house all day.

**0.-0.-0**

I woke up slowly, aware of a grinding pain in my hip and a duller, older ache in my ribs and head.

_Moss Dressers,_ I thought unhappily,  _next time don't bother to hit them. Just set them on fire, and run away._

Grumbling, I rolled over, which made my ribs yowl with displeasure. Something heavy and hard slipped out of my pocket and rolled against my back.

_COLD!_

I performed some interesting and painful gyrations as I swatted at the cold object pressed intimately against my goosepimply back flesh, and I finally grabbed the thing and inspected it blearily in the dim light of my room.

_Where the hell,_ I thought fuzzily,  _did I get a rock?_

It was a rock. Well, kinda. It was shiny.

_I must have snagged it from Mullet,_ I realized. And then I remembered. His money had been in the side pocket of his pants; this I'd gotten from the inside pocket of his coat. It had been a neat piece of work all around, I'd been proud of myself at the time.

But... what was I going to  _do_  with it?

I groaned, and leaned back against the headboard. The rock was big enough to fit comfortably in my palm; a stone the color of blood that had a dull center for all the shine of its exterior.

_I'll sell it,_ I figured eventually, and shoved it back into my pocket.  _Can't hurt. Has to be worth something._

I sagged back into the scratchy nest of blankets that was my bed. I'd slept all night in that keen-edged, vaguely uncomfortable state where you're not cold enough to be completely awake, but still too chilled to sleep happily. It had meant waking up every once in a while with my muscles cramping from huddling into myself as tightly as possible for too long. But there had been no bugs.

_Too cold for bugs,_ I groused inwardly, but then I steeled myself and got to my feet. The floor was  _freezing,_ and I hopped on one foot as I affixed my dying sandals to my feet.

I felt like I hadn't slept at all. My eyes were rough and sore, and my head throbbed persistently and blended in with the bruises from my fight with the Moss Dresser until I felt like a patchwork of old pain. Ignoring it, I popped my neck, then touched my toes a few times to limber up.

What to do today.

New clothes, for one. Mine were far too cold for this weather, and dirty and full of holes to boot. But before that, breakfast. And eventually I'd have to find a job, permanent or not.

_How can they not hire me?_ I mused as my mood improved _. I'm strong. I can fight. I can cross my toes._

And with that, I flipped my hair over my shoulder and strode out the door.

Today was going to be a success.

**0.-0.-0**

Breakfast had been a cold and greasy end of bread, a chunk of meat, and yet another cup of coffee. I didn't have time to complain, and choked half a cup down before calling it quits. The whole thing cost way more than it warranted, and my heart had sunk as the kitchen boy told me how much it would be.

I felt a buzz of energy trickle down my spine as I asked the guy heading the front desk where the merchant's district was, and what kinds of places were hiring in the city.

He gave me directions to the merchant's quarter in a surly sort of way, but he never looked at me much, always above and to the side of me, like I offended him somehow. When pressured as to where someone could find a job, he finally said to look down by the market place for the merchant trains that were hiring out, and then asked me if I had a brother or something that was interested in that sort of work.

I had thought that question odd, and snorted and said of course not. His eyebrows shot up into his hairline, and then his mouth snapped shut like he really  _was_ offended, and I figured I wouldn't be getting much more out of him, so I went outside. Everyone watched me. It was  _creepy._

The directions weren't that hard to follow, and soon I was even recognizing some landmarks that I'd passed by in my wanderings yesterday. Soon the stones on the streets changed from the tiny cobbles of the cheaper district that I'd stayed in last night to more utilitarian and ornate flagstones of the wide and bright avenues of the mercantile region.

Many of the shops had large windows, showing whatever they had to offer. The one closest to me displayed a tall blue dress rimmed with white fur, with enough small white gems on it to sink a ship. The store next over had boots so glossy that you could see your reflection in them, and the next had jewelry so delicate it looked like it was made entirely out of frost.

I'd gulped. No  _way_ was I going to be able to afford any of this. Even my ill-gotten gold wasn't enough the buy anything that nice.

The stores became less ritzy the further down you went, and it was nearly at the end that I finally found something within my price range. A dour-faced man wrapped in a moleskin coat let me root through his rag cart for whatever I wanted. After ten minutes of fruitless searching (wherein I found not one, but three brassieres big enough to fit my head in) I found a pair of filthy, but tough pants that looked like they might fit me, two socks that were dirty enough to almost match, and a manky fur-lined coat that looked like it might keep me warm, regardless of the numerous small bloodstains about the sleeves. The pants, regrettably, I had to let go of. I already had a pair, I could fight in them, and I needed the cash. But the rest fit under my arm in a paper parcel, and I felt good about buying them.

Even further down, in a raggedy booth watched by an old man and his withered little wife who kept her shawl over her face and stayed in the back the whole time shooting me acid looks, I found a knobbly, water-warped pair of boots with a layer of steel underneath the toe leather. This was awesome. I bought them, and I didn't even haggle that much.  _Why had I never heard of these?_

And then, I went to find work.

Ten minutes of hard walking and desperately trying to remember the directions I'd wheedled away from that one guy (plus three minutes of backtracking wherein I had realized that I was in a residential neighborhood and not in the least where I wanted to be), I found the maze of stables and wagons that marked where the farmers and merchants left their animals when they entered the city, and also where they picked up new people to either care for their stock, or get hired on to guard the caravans on their way south. Recently they had started hiring more and more guards for the trip; there were more dangers than bandits on the road. The road to Lohan passed along the edges of the enormous southern desert, and wound around a range of treacherous mountains and parched wasteland until it finally reached the wet and foggy bottomlands of Serdio (yet another added benefit of hiding out where there were books as a kid. I knew the geography of the main continent like the back of my hand).

I'd decided on merchant guard for a couple of reasons. One, the job required one of the few skills I actually possess; how to kick ass and walk a long ways at the same time. Another, following a caravan would mean getting the hell out of town and laying a much more convoluted trail for anyone wanting revenge to follow (I wasn't sure if Mullet was the vindictive type, but if he was, hell, I didn't want to be there).

I hadn't been alone when I'd entered the district. There were a shitload of other people there too, probably for the same reason. Pens of sheep jostled alongside wagons full of panting chickens or rolled up rugs. Two-legged Runners shambled by me, snorting unhappily as the carts they pulled rattled behind them. Their larger four-legged cousins were all around, neighing and scratching at the ground. They weren't meant to be cooped up in the city; they were riding animals, meant for long distances and open spaces. I was feeling all bad for them and stuff until one totally dropped a couple in the middle of the road and I  _stepped_  in it and I was still wearing my  _sandals_  and if you think I was gonna sniff over the plight of a bunch of poopin' oversized hamsters, then you've got another thing coming.

So while I was busy leaning against a wall, trying to knock Runner sludge off of my feet, I kept one eye open for what seemed to be the protocol for getting hired on. At first, it was all rather incomprehensible. Everyone seemed to already  _know_  what their job was, from loading the wagons, to feeding the Runners, to standing around looking bored.

But after a while, I did see a place where a lot of men seemed to gather, like they were waiting for something. Most of them were young, and they all separated into their own groups, talking and laughing, or just punching each other in the head and swearing. Every so often somebody who looked like they were in charge of something would arrive, and all the men would start and get in lines and act real polite. Sometimes one or two of them would leave with the new arrival, and then the whole thing would start up again.

A hiring area, I realized. They all crowd up there, and whoever needs a man to work just comes up and takes who he likes best.

Well  _that's_  easy!

I rearranged the packages under my arm, then walked on over, picked an empty seat, and sat down.

After a while, it felt like something was burning a hole in the back of my head.

I turned around.

They were all. Staring. At me.

Fine. I could deal with that. I'm a friggin' martial arts  _wizard_  from the most elite school on the planet. I can break down doors with my  _face!_ I wasn't gonna worry about a bunch of weird looks from some mudfaced peasants. I was iron and muscle and arrogance, and they couldn't touch me.

Conversation picked up slowly again, but it had a different flavor to it this time, with a bunch of low laughs and sideways grins. Mean-edged and creepy.

There was a six foot circle of space all around me, and nobody came within that distance.

_My jaw is set and my pulse is slow and my stomach is tight. One breath in. One breath out._

_No one can touch me._

I waited.

**0.-0.-0**

The wait took hours, then hours more. Then still more hours after that- oh fuck it, seriously, it took  _forever_  and I was  _bored_  and it was  _boring_  and it never ended, and for all I know, I'm still there.

Well not really.

It wasn't just me, all of the men there were bored and impatient too. Some of them fought, some just played cards, some just sat there, and the  _real_  bastards got out their lunches.

I wasn't the only one watching them with a glint in my eye. Some of the boys there were younger than me, skinnier and hungrier too, and their eyes were riveted on the food in front of them, and on a smaller scale, on me. They weren't subtle about it. They goggled, but none of them seemed willing to talk to me.

The seat was hard.

And…. _boring_.

Uncontrollably, my foot started tapping against the floor.

Dad had always hated that about me. I didn't  _do_  boring. I didn't sit still for hours on end in quiet reflection and meditation, unless I was sleeping, and he didn't even allow much of that.

You see, my least favorite facet of my training (or at least one of them) involved the monkey poles on the training platform overlooking the sea. The poles were nothing special, just a scattering of poles with flat-cut tops, getting taller the further they went. The idea behind them was kind of fun, actually. They were meant to improve your balance, to make it so that no matter where you stepped and no matter how you moved, you wouldn't lose your root and fall over. If you could hold all of your stances up there, if you could perform all of your punches, kicks and turns, then you figured you were all right, really. There's more to it, there always is, but I'd always had a good time playing on them as a kid.

Dad sucked the fun right out of it.

There were the drills, yeah. I'd been doing those since I was twee, with all the rest of the kids and old Keys, who'd teach us for an hour, tops, disappear, and then we'd find him napping underneath the platform when we were done climbing the tallest poles and pushing each other off for a few hours. But Dad wanted me to climb to the highest pole, assume the newest stance I was learning, hold it, and meditate.

"Uhh… what on?" I had asked the first time, wobbling on one leg.

He'd scowled at me, his face one big mustache of disapproval. "Focus, for once in your damned life," he'd said. "Feel every muscle in your body and imagine what it can do. Pray."

I hadn't like the prayers he'd taught me. But I said them anyway, to the Black Heat, the War God of my people, who'd survived a thousand years of belief and war for that belief. And I had to stand absolutely  _still._

Ever since, whenever I get bored, antsy, or uncomfortable, I tap my toes, drum my fingers, anything. Just a small way of defiance, I guess.

Those were the  _real_  old ways, the ones nobody bothered with anymore because we weren't the warrior nomads that we used to be, before we settled down and one smart ancestor said,  _That's it. We're done. No more moving around, no more raiding, no more vendettas. We're tired, and we're hungry, and our kids need a place to grow up. Now. Who knows how to use a fishing pole?_

And then we were happy. Yeah, raiders came looking for us since the Islands didn't belong to Mille Seseau or Tiberoa and weren't protected by anybody. They thought that we were fair game. And we kicked their teeth out the backs of their skulls. That was enough, for some of us. A soft, warm life in the island sun, catching fish and eating fruit and keeping an edge on your fighting instincts.

But there were a few old guys like Dad who wouldn't let the old ways die out. The Gods of victory and of war, the Gods of the wind in the sails, and the storm on the horizon. Gods you prayed to with blood on your teeth and metal on your fists, Gods you prayed to when you wanted to tear your way through the muscles of your enemy with your fingernails. They weren't nice Gods. Unlike Soa, who seemed to just lie around planting trees and smiling benevolently at mankind, our Gods made us battle crazy. They made us vessels, and they stayed until the battle was won. They were jealous, vicious, and glorious, and Dad just ate that shit  _up_.

I didn't like worshipping them. I rather liked the vague, unfocused group-hug-ness that was Soa. Worshipping him was easy. You just had to believe and give presents on certain feast days, and then when you died, you got to go to a nice fluffy place where they gave you new clothes and nice things to eat. Or so Lotta's mom told me.

Our Gods wanted sacrifice. And the biggest one of all of them only wanted War, and only favored those who were best at it. I wasn't entirely sure how standing atop a pole with your bones locked played into it, but what did I know. Dad didn't bother explaining anything when he could just tell you to do it, then spend the next two hours ripping into you for not doing it right.

Someone was talking at me.

I shook myself out of my reverie, and looked up to the sound.

For a moment then, I wasn't too sure what was going on. Then I caught sight of three men in particular grinning at me, all behind the one who I figured had spoken. "What?" I said. My foot stopped tapping.

I tried to not look like I was ready to bolt.

"I said, you looking for a job?" said one of the men. He was of middle-height, with curly brown hair and white, straight teeth. His face was boyish, with angled eyebrows that gave him a puckish look, and he had freckles on his cheeks. He actually wasn't that bad looking, with brown friendly eyes like a mutt's. The other men with him chuckled quietly, and there was an answering ripple throughout the crowd, and every eye was trained, however surreptitiously, on me.

I sat up straight, as slowly as I could. The hairs on the back of my neck were stirring slightly.  _Was this the start of a fight?_ "Yeah," I answered casually.  _You wanna make something of it, you dog-eyed punk?_

My feet pressed more firmly into the floor.

"Well, what kinda job are you looking for?" he asked, grinning. He was leaning forward politely, his hands folded in front of him like it was only just the two of us having a conversation. 'I'm sure we can help you out."

_Hmmn. Dilemna._ "No thank you," I said evenly. I let out the breath I hadn't even known I was holding.

_Was this a fight building?_

_Don't_ , I told myself.  _Stay under control._

Luckily, my time there was almost up, it seemed. A man ducked under the edge of the pavilion roof and entered out of the street. He didn't have that same combination of hopefulness and of being short on cash that the rest of us did. He had good, rich clothes lined with fur, and a well-trimmed beard. This man had a purpose to his step.

"Right," he barked. "Got a shipment of Serdian swine that need food and water for the night, and someone to make sure that they don't mix with that coughing lot over by the west gate. Pay's three rocks a day. Who wants the job?"

"She'll give you a hand!" said the one who had been addressing me earlier. Everyone started laughing, raucous and loud, like there was something uproariously funny that everyone got but me.

The realization that I was the butt of an even more enormous joke than I had known dawned slowly.

The big man frowned, " 'She' ?" he said. Then he turned, and saw me sitting there. His face darkened.

The others only cackled louder. To my utter fury and embarrassment, my cheeks flamed.

The big man shook his head at me slowly, as if he couldn't quite parse this. "Hiring tent's for job-seeking men only, kid," he said gruffly.

"Nah, we've got a place she can work," said the curly boy who'd approached me earlier, sidling close suddenly, and then his  _hand_  was on my  _waist_  like we were  _bestest best buddies_ and sweet fucking god, I just snapped.

He collided with the side of the tent, and his weight tore the support poles out of place so fast the canvas tore. Everyone in the shout started shouting at once, as I swam through oceans of dusty canvas to where the boy had landed, planted one foot on his bony chest, and had the other up under his chin to connect with his jaw with a  _crunch_.

His jaw broke. I could see the break, and it made him less pretty. He stayed quiet, so I guess he passed out.  _Didn't kill him didn't kill him DON'T KILL HIM DON'T KILL_ I shrieked inside, because I could feel my foot wanting to wind back for one more kick and drive itself through his skull.

And I could do it. I completely could. I'd be scraping bone and chunks off my toes for days.

But I could.

I think then I screamed. Or something. Everything was confusion, and people were still

trapped under the tent, and I saw an out, somewhere-anywhere, and I took it.

**0.-0.-0**

I'm not good at anything.

I can't fix things. I can't make things. I can't take care of other people.

My life one long story of shit I haven't finished, stunts I can't pull off, and people I fucked over because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time in my armpit of an existence.

I've got nothing that I can give to anyone, or to save myself for, 'cept the knowledge of how to break up people into their labeled parts and then stomp on them.

And I was all out of options.

**0.-0.-0**


	6. Chapter 6

If I concentrated on my breathing hard enough, and canted my head to the side and curled my hand into my chest while looking doggedly at the floorboards, I could almost focus exclusively on the heat-drunk drone of the crickets in the trees, and the distant slap of waves on the reef. I could distantly hear what was going on in town below, even though the platform was a couple hundred feet above; there was no mistaking the sound of the chickens. Someone was getting their head chopped off, I figured. Lucky them.

But try as I might, the green-orange-black spike of pain throbbing in my hand was making it hard to think about anything else, and the instant it brought me back down, I couldn't hear anything other than-

"- own damn fault for what happened here today, the gods' honest truth. You go around rabbit-punching things like a goddamned three-year-old, never making a direct hit, and don't come crying to me when your hands aren't built up enough to take it when you finally have to actually hit something, Claire. You may have been able to get by just slapping stuff around like it don't mean jack shit, but we're doing stuff that's going to require some goddamn  _calluses_ , which I know you don't have anywhere 'cept the ones you got from laying around on your ass all day watching the people who actually have a duty to fulfill try to treat their heritage with a little respect, which I know you don't know the first thing about. You want to know why you broke your hand, Claire? It's because you didn't line up the punch, and you flinched like a goddamn spook like  _you always do_  when it came time to  _maybe this time put your hand through the wall like I asked_. And you didn't absorb it properly, and that made the bones go  _crunch_ , right? That's what happens- get one thing wrong, one small, stupid thing, and you're absolutely useless for the next month. Take a look at my hands, Claire."

He held them up. He was against the sun, so it was a little hard to see him, and I was crouching there trembling like a leaf in a wind with sweat oozing sickly over my shoulders, and the pain was still making my stomach curl. He was a big black shadow against the blue, eyebrows drawn down tight and his black eyes saying  _I am not amused_ , and his fists up for me to look at them. They were like gnarled bits of lump-ridden wood, with big soft veins and lopsided knuckles, and I swear to Soa, nothing's scared the shit out of me more in my entire life.

"I got ugly hands, girl, and so are you someday, and get used to it. You aren't gonna be able to uncurl your hands properly by the time you're twenty-five and you're gonna be lucky if you're still able to hold a goddamn fork. You're gonna have blocks of stone on each wrist just like me, and you're gonna strike fear into the hearts of the people that try to take our heritage away. Only you're never gonna get there if you don't  _shape up_ ,  _quit_ whining, and accept the fact that there's nothing else for you in life 'cept to protect what's ours. You aren't gonna be some soft-bellied wife swinging a kid off each tit if I have anything to say about it, and that's the gods' honest truth. You're gonna have ugly hands. You're gonna be able to punch through mountains. And you're gonna take apart anyone who tries to take what's ours."

I took in one shaky breath, and forced it out, and felt my head spin as the crickets seem to get even louder. "Can I go see Keys now? I think…. Well, there's some bone poking out right about here, and I think that might get in the way of fulfilling my heritage or possibly my destiny. I think."

He inhaled sharply though his nose. The crickets got louder. The chicken noises had died down; no doubt there was already a head flopping in the dust.

"Yeah," he said shortly. His tight, quiet voice used only for me. "Go get it tied up, then escort yourself somewhere else for the night. I've had about it up to here with you."

"Thanks," I said, and lurched to my feet.  _Spinning!_ I thought with a giddy edge of hysteria.  _And black spots! The novelty!_ "I'll do that." Turned. Headed for the ladder, and prepared to make my way down it, one-handed and loopy with pain.

"And Claire," he said in that same, taut voice, and I paused by the ladder, only barely remembering to turn around and look him near the eye when he talked, 'cuz you didn't want to _see him_  when you didn't look at him when he wanted you to.

He was still a big black cloud against the sun, all teakwood gristle and mustache.

"Your mother never broke a bone in her body, and she coulda turned that lump of rock into gravel if you gave her half a chance." And he never looked away from my face when he said it, the stone-cold prick.

I leaned on one of the monkey poles, and looked like I was just gathering strength for the climb down. "Thanks Dad," I said. "Means a lot."

"And if you think you aren't training tomorrow, you're a whole new kind of stupid that hasn't been discovered yet, understand?"

"Got it, Dad. No slacking off because of a compound fracture."

Here he jerked his chin up, and my spine turned to pig iron, the kind that rattles apart at the slightest kick, like the swords Mall keeps finding washed up after a big storm and the ships go down. "Master," he said. "I'm not your father. I'm not your friend. I'm the only thing in your life that means anything, and you will call me Master."

_You'd think I'd mind it less seeing as I've heard it before_ , a small voice said coolly.

He didn't back down, just kept on staring at me, so I had to. I pulled a jerky bow, one hand still high on my chest. "I'm sorry Master," I said stiffly, and that shit was  _embarrassing_ , and then I felt it, like I'd felt it before. Like a huge, monstrous fish stirring the waters at the bottom of a very deep lake. Something large and red and malevolent, and very old,  _and I could sympathize, yes I could._

"Get going," he said. "I got nothing for you."

**0.-0.-0**

Keys was the stringy old grandpa that everyone wished they had- and probably did have, seeing as he was related to about half the people in the islands. We were blood somehow, I think he was one of Mom's second cousins, and I know that way back in the day one of Dad's grandparents had a brother who married into Key's family. (It's less gross than it sounds, trust me, we aren't as inbred as we sound. Someone always drags in some outlander to freshen up the gene pool, otherwise we'd all have webbed feet and cross eyes.) He was old as hell, too, but he still found the time to take some of the younger kids and teach them a few basic moves before they moved on up the line. Folks said he used to be the real muscle before my Dad came around, but his back was stove up so bad these days that he just couldn't pull most of it off anymore. He got by okay though, just spent his time under the palm trees with a jug of whatever he had going in his still at the time and one of those smutty continental books he kept trading people beachcomber's shit for. We all worshipped him as kids, him and his tobacco-stained fingers and brown teeth and the entirely age-inappropriate stories that we ate up like it was going out of style. Lotta didn't like him so much on account as he was  _dirty as fuck_ , but I thought he was hilarious. There weren't many people back then who'd talk to me like I wasn't some kind of Chosen Disciple of Fate and Kicking Ass, and Keys, he talked to everyone the same. Plus I could tell he gave more than two shits about me even when he wasn't making fun of how my rack was coming along, and he did his best to buck me up in his own way. Mostly it meant him dragging me off to comb the beaches for washed-up pirate gear when his back wasn't giving him too much trouble, and he'd let me keep anything interesting I found unless it had a) breasts, all kinds, or b) a bit of booze left in it.

He was also the guy to come to if you had gotten yourself banged up some and didn't want anyone giving you shit about it. Keys was good like that, he let you keep your family bullshit to yourself and didn't make you feel bad about barging in on an old man's day and making him pay attention to you.

I found him back behind his shack down by the docks, a tangle of old fishing nets to be repaired on one side of him that he was ignoring at the moment, seeing as he had a fairly new copy of  _Serdian Stallion_  straight off one of the boats from the continent, and had his rheumy eyes so close to the spine that you'd think he was getting ink on his nose.

"Claire, finally," he said when he caught sight of me. "Listen to this, I like it.  _Rolland ran his confident fingers up her well-turned thigh and planted a manly squeeze on her quivering scented mound of iniquity. 'I burn only for you,' he said huskily._

' _Oh Rolland!' sighed the grey eyed ingénue. 'Explore my moist jungle with your mighty python of love!'_ Think I know a few other rare snakes she'd like, you know?"

"Keys, that's disgusting," I said faintly. "You are  _wrinkly_. The thought of your snake collection is enough to turn me off the heterosexual lifestyle altogether, and me and Lotta are already starting to get some pretty awkward questions about our alone time."

"Hey, anytime you want to start a jungle expedition with the blonde, I'm all for it. Just get me some woodcuts of it, that's all. Aw, fuck me, honey, what did you do to yourself this time?" he said quickly, but not meanly, as he saw how I was still holding the one hand funny. He hauled himself into a more upright seat as I slumped down into the sand in front of him and leaned against a box of fishing floats.

"Punched a rock."

"Soa's tits, kid, I never had an argument with a rock that I couldn't talk it out of, forget popping it one," he said, making a  _get over here_ gesture with one withered claw of a hand to make me fork my arm over. I flinched when he turned my hand over and examined the break, but he was nice about it and didn't hurt me more than I was already hurting. "Listen, I can count how many times I've had to punch through a rock wall in a fight just by dropping my trousers, and that's only 'cuz my hand slipped and the guy ducked."

"That's the second time you've referenced your penis in this conversation,  _and there will be no third time._  You are old, you have terrible teeth, and no one wants to sleep with you. God."

He leered at me, "You tell that to Mrs. Lorre up by the spring. I go there twice a week for her acupuncture and it's been doing my old back a world of good, if you get me."

" _Mrs Lorre?!_  She's my great aunt! I used to go to her house for dinner on weekends, and sleep on her couch!  _You have violated my couch!_  You sick, sick man!"

"Hey, I'm old, she's old, and that's one nice couch. Now shut up and drink these," and he dropped a couple of green-white glass bottles in my lap and started fishing around in his gear back for whatever else he'd need.

I pried the cork out of the first one-handed, using my teeth, and made a gagging  _bleeeaaahh_ noise as I emptied the whole syrupy nightmare down my throat. "Aw man, do you ferment these or what? Thought they were supposed to taste like mint."

"They been in my pack a while. Should still work. Now drink the other one, I wanna see your pupils dilated out to here before I start working on this."

I sucked down the last one in one messy slurp, just to make him wince. "Gonna have to chop it off, doc?" I asked, voice going all slushy sweet.

"Nah, you ain't getting out of training that easy. 'Sides, your dad'd make you strap a spike on the stump and start punching shit like that, 'stead of the boring way we do now," he grumbled, unrolling some bandages. "You know, with fists and stuff."

"Yeah, didn't think I was going to get out of it," I said. "'cept if you stand behind me with a sword while I do the ritual cuts."

"What the fuck do people use  _swords_ for?" he asked. "Fuckin' sharp sticks with fancy handles is all, there's no friendliness in it. Stab a guy in the gut, and he don't get to know you none. Kick him in the kneecap and he knows everything about you, real quick."

The potions hit right about then, like the  _whomp_  of a good shove in the back, and all the air seemed to go out of me at once. "Whoa, hey _"_ I said. "You been adulterating these with something?"

"Little of this, little of that," he shrugged. "Makes it interesting. Now sit tight, missie, you may be stoned out of your gourd at the moment, but you're gonna feel like moving when I get to work, and that ain't gonna be okay with me. Don't do it. Seriously."

"You know me," I said, sagging downwards as he picked up something sharp and shiny. "Quiet as a mouse. Serene as a pond. Disciplined as a veteran. Brave as a  _oh please Keys, don't do that to me, I never did anything to you and I'm a real nice girl please stop it nggghhhh…."_

"Remember that bit about not moving," he said, eyes on his work. "I'm old, my hands shake, and I'm having a hard enough time as it is. I love you, you're a good kid, just sit tight. I'll be done in a sec."

" _This is because I made fun of your schlong, isn't it? I take it back, I swear I'll have sex with you if you leave me alone."_

"Kid, I like my women with a build a little more  _husky_ , if you feel me. Not like a harpoon with big feet. And quit bleeding."

" _Would if I could, you sadist cocksucker. FUCK._ "

"Aw shit, you ain't exactly a clotter, are you? Oh well, bone's back in where it should be, I'll stitch you up. Now drink, quick." Keys held another bottle up to my lips, blue-white this time. A fog. I gagged it down as fast as I could, and pretended like I didn't have tears and snot pouring down my face. The fog didn't taste like anything this time, just felt like a kick to the head that went on forever. He was nice enough to ignore the sheen of mucus and sweat on me, and every so often reached up from his work to awkwardly smooth the hair behind my ear in a way that made me want to cry even more. He ignored that too.

When he was done, he wrapped my hand up in about a mile of bandages, and pulled me over to sit with him against the wall, my head on his shoulder and enfolded in the smell of old man, tobacco, and the manky herbs he smeared on his back to take the kink out of it. He clumsily put an arm around me and smeared a bit of my blood on my shirt as he squeezed my upper arm. He used his other hand to grab the flask from his bag and I could smell it from where I was as he spent a couple long seconds draining it dry.

"Cripes, kid," he said when he finally screwed the top back on. "Don't make me do that for you anymore."

"I'll try," I said muzzily. "Still bad at punching rocks though."

"Yeah, well," he said lightly. "They're hard little fuckers, aren't they?" He shifted around a bit before he found a position that was comfy, and I heard the tension come out of him in a raspy sigh as he relaxed. "Take a load off."

_Hell, I am_ drunk _,_  I thought with some amazement.  _Can barely feel my hand. Or my toes for that matter_. But I did as he said anyways and cuddled up like there was no shame in it. And there wasn't, not really. He was Keys. He was practically my grandpa, and it wasn't like he was going to tell anyone that I was a fuckin' wimp who cried when she broke a hand.

We stayed like that, for a while. I think he dropped off after a while, 'cuz he was halfway drunk himself by that point, and he looked at napping like it was his life's calling. Heard the little whistle in his nose as he slipped over, too.

Was getting less cautious, the sleepier I got. "He said something," I grunted. "About my mom."

He snorted a little as he was yanked out of it, but he didn't say anything. Just listened.

"Said she coulda had that wall down in a second. Said she'd never broke a bone in her life." It didn't come out easy, but there it was. I said it quick, and stumbling, like rocks in a streambed, like I didn't know what he'd think of me when I said it, and didn't want to find out. I didn't talk to him about Dad much, besides the usual. Life sucks, training sucks, wish I'd been born handless and footless, that sort of thing. Never anything real. I knew that Dad and Keys weren't really buddies in the truest sense, but I didn't want to fuck up anything that they had going.

"Doesn't think I'm like her," I finished lamely.

"You ain't, not much." he said mildly.

I sank, and hated myself for it. "Yeah, figured as much."

"Nah, not in a bad way," he said gruffly. "Naida was her own girl, didn't take nothing from nobody, and she didn't dick around with pulverizing walls when she could kick a guy in the balls, you get me?"

"But she could, right?" I said in a kind of maudlin slur.

"Course she could, we all could at that age, which is about six years off for you. I dunno what kinda program Haschel's got you running on, but you shouldn't be anywhere near that stage yet. Your bones are still growing in, you see, and you haven't spent the three or four years we did breaking up pirates, like we did. The big, flashy tricks he's got you doing are bullshit, kid, what you do when you're already at the top of your game and you get bored."

"…oh." I said.

He ruffled my hair. "I liked your mom, kid. She was kind of a vicious cunt, if you know what I mean, but she was brave as hell, and she drove your dad nuts."

"How so?" I said, sinking downward.

"Wouldn't give him the time of day, for one. He couldn't get her to turn her head for shit, and she knew how much it dug at him to see it. But he eventually got to her with that dedicated warrior bullcrap and they got hitched. Surprised some of us," he finished with a snort.

"…didn't love him?" I asked.

"Nah, she liked him well enough. Didn't let his head swell up any while she was around, made sure of that. And she was absolutely bug fuck about being a mom, she loved that diaper-changing and bootie-knitting shit," he said, squeezing my arm again.

"Thanks, Keys," I said. "…the hand and everything." And right about then, I just kind of drifted off.

"You'll be alright," he said brusquely as I slipped over the edge. "You haven't fucked up too bad yet." And then he scrunched down right along with me with my blood crusting in his knuckles, and we had a decent nap in the shade.

**0.-0.-0**


	7. Chapter 7

I was rounding the corner that led to the latest in a string of increasingly cheaper rat holes I was staying in when I noticed the pile of bedraggled  _stuff_  on the sidewalk just outside of it. I'd grown a keen eye for scavenging over the last couple of days; you never know what you can scrounge from a heap of unlikely looking trash, and there was a good chance that there was still a bit of coin left in the pockets of whatever it was.

Then I noticed that the scrap of blue underneath was the sleeve of one of  _my_ shirts, and that the pair of skinny arms one floor up chucking one sock after another out the window belonged to the dour-faced chambermaid I'd run into the night before. And as she up-ended the contents of my gear bag into the street, I rather think that the shriek of primal rage that echoed off the rooftops might have been me, really.

The street was fairly deserted for that time of day, but someone had already picked my stuff clean of anything valuable long before I got there. Half of my clothes were in the gutter, and so much Runner shit and storm runoff ran through there that there was no way I could resurrect them. All of the small essentials I'd picked up over the last week were gone too- the tiny mirror, the comb, the bar of soap, either snatched up by the maids or the people on the street.

I shoved anything resurrectable into my gear bag and threw it over my shoulder as I dove inside the rat hole to have a word with the owner.

"What the  _shit_?" I barked when I got inside.

The proprietor was sitting at the front counter like he always was, a fat bear of a guy with huge shoulders and a glare you could chip paint with. It failed to lighten up any when he saw me coming in. He had a tiny brown-skinned Tiberoan wife who kept herself in the kitchen all day and cooked up greasier versions of the desert food she'd grown up with to bring in money. He had a plate of it in front of him just then, pan fried dumplings smothered in some kind of curry garlic sauce, and was eating it with methodical absentmindedness, wiping his fingers on his apron and leaving behind a grease trail like a slug.

I might have ruined it a little when I kicked a chair aside and slapped my gutter-soaked clothes right in the middle of his plate with a wet, resounding  _smack_.

Figured I looked a mess when I did it too, my hair sticking up everywhere from not going washed, my eyes red-rimmed like they'd been washed out with salt and sea-urchins. I hadn't been sleeping much.

He didn't react other than to mop up his mouth with the edge of his apron and give me one long, slow stare that seemed to bore right through me and burst out through the other side like a cannonball. Didn't say nothing either, just kept up the stare.

"I paid you last night," I snapped, voice hitting a kind of toxic growl. "I paid you all I owed, and  _over_ , as you might recall, so I could have time to get the full price in for tonight. You wrote it down, I  _saw_ you." I snatched the ledger from his desk and slammed it down over the remains of his meal, and tore it open to the right page, stabbing one finger where my name and what I'd paid for the day were written in his square hand.  _Klare. 18_ _th_ _October- Six and a quarter._

"Didn't even get my fucken' name right," I muttered

He dragged his eyes down to the page eventually, and made a show of studying the line. "Six n' a quarter's for one night. House rules," he rumbled finally.

"And I paid you three and two quarters over, you fat sack of shit, now make the people who cleaned out my room give me my  _stuff_  back _,"_  I spat out. "Soa's  _urethra,_ do you have any idea how much they scalped me for?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see heads ducking inside to see what the noise was, and the owner stiffened as he saw them too. He pulled himself up then, and closed the ledger with a ring of finality. He ignored the pile of my ragged clothes on his desk, and as he settled back in his chair with his arms folded over his massive chest, he settled down to ignore me too. I could see myself erasing from his eyes as I watched, deliberately glossing over some loud female who'd ruined his lunch and wouldn't fade quietly into nonexistence.

I knew I could break his teeth, beer gut or no. I could have his desk broken in half and jam his ledger down his throat in three shakes if I wanted to, and  _I wanted to_. I was roiling myself into a fine old-fashioned snit by this point, and could have gone in the same vein that I'd been going for since I'd arrived on the continent- smash everything in sight and fuck the consequences. It made things simpler, for one, and I needed an awful lot of simplicity from day one of my exile. It made things easy, and it made me feel good and hard and perfect and  _clean_.

But then I saw his little Tiberoan wife clinging white-knuckled to the side frame of the kitchen entrance, her face so screwed up with worry that it ruined whatever beauty she had, and things got fucking complicated all over again.

"I'm leaving," I growled. "Goddamnit,  _look at me_ , I'm fucken'  _gone_ , get it? But fuck me for a liar if I ever come back here and I don't break your fat fucken' head in a door, got it?"

He was still ignoring me, but there was a cough of a snarl in his voice as he hocked and spat on the floor beside him.

I shot a grin at him. All cheeky sweetness. Then I whipped one foot up and cracked the heel down on the desk before him before he could spit again, making a hole so big he could shove his face in it if he wanted to. He jumped, and I smirked. Go ahead, try and ignore that, I thought viciously.

I turned to the wife, who was still clinging to the doorframe. "Quit cooking him all that fried shit," I said to her. "It ain't doing any good for him, trust me." She was giving me this look of horrified femininity and it tickled me something pink to see it.

I was flat broke, with nowhere to go, and with fewer options by the second, but I still felt like singing like a fucking songbird as I left.

**0.-0.-0**

Breaking shit still gave me a faint glowing feeling as the day wore on, but it was slowly getting outgunned by how my stomach was complaining. I know that years of Rouge discipline should have left me inured to something as earthly and contemptible as hunger, but in all honesty, Lotta kept slipping me cheese during fast week, and her mom was usually nice enough to bring me a hot lunch when I was supposed to be meditating on the monkey poles. Actually, I think that eating a hot chicken sandwich while balancing on a single twelve-foot pole without dribbling it all over the place is a feat in itself, but I doubt Dad would have understood the training benefits. Not that he ever  _ate_  hot chicken sandwiches, the fucker, the man lived on tea and dried herring alone because he said it kept him in condition. This is because he was a sadist, and no one wanted to have sex with him, ever.

But still, I was hungry.

I was also  _without cash_ , a state I hadn't been since before Keys taught me how to slip stuff out of people's pockets and into mine with a minimum of fuss. But I'd seen what they did to pickpockets here- they catch you once, they cut off a hand. They catch you twice, they don't bother cutting off the other one; they just drop you from a trapdoor with a rope around your neck. Simple. I wasn't going to kid myself into thinking that I was  _that_  good of a cutpurse, I'd only barely gotten away with it before. Mullet was a fluke. The dope was so spaced out most of the time that I doubt he'd have noticed if I'd chopped his dick off and nailed a cuckoo clock on instead.

And no, that wasn't a stab of guilt there; that was my  _stomach,_ and it was  _digesting itself_.

Which explained why I was dumpster diving.

I poked through the bits of half-eaten food, all lumped together and forgotten.

This was supposed to be easy,you know?

Running away is something that every kid dreams about. You just pack up the essentials, toss it over your back, and join a Gypsy caravan or something. And then you have tons of wild adventures and fall in love and spend the rest of your life defeating evil and having incredible sex. Or something.

(Actually Lotta had found that last bit out. It had been in one of the books from the mainland. With woodcuts. We made etchings, and Keys thought it was hilarious. And then we got in trouble.)

The point was that it wasn't supposed to be this hard. There weren't supposed to be dirty hotel rooms that take all of your money, or good paying jobs that don't hire girls because girls are supposed to stay home and cook for fat, dead-eyed fucks with beer bellies, or shivering all night, or blood on your hands.

It was  _supposed_  to be rainbows and sunshine and plucky stiff-upper-lip courage.

Hell, it wasn't even sunny.

I had entered Deningrad with nothing but a handful of cash and some delusions in my head that yeah, I was going to be okay. There would be someone out there that would make it all better. I'd just walk straight up to them, casually punch out a bystander in a suitably impressive way, and say,  _I'm the man for the job._

I'd been able to survive and keep going before because I'd just kept focusing on what I needed to do next. Get on a ship, disappear into the crowd, leave town. Once I got far enough away, I'd make a new life somehow. Fade into the background.

Apparently Deningrad wasn't far enough.

Holding still became a problem. I couldn't do it. If I wasn't moving, I was thinking, and thinking was ripping my brain apart. Rose colored taffeta chunks. Now that I didn't have any idea whatthe fuck I was going to do with my life, I had to think on what I'd done so far, and that made everything crawl to a halt.

I'd known, somewhere, in the back of my mind, that it was going to come down to this eventually, but I hadn't wanted to believe it. No one does, I think, want to believe that some day they'll be sifting through the sacks of scraps thrown outside a high-end restaurant looking for their next lunch, because nobody ever wants to believe that- oh my god _, is that a Danish with just the corner bit off?!_

I digress.

The awful part was that I bet I could have saved a load of money if I'd just done this in the first place, and not half-starved myself on food from the cheapest roadside carts I could find. This shit may have been half-chewed and going cold, but at least it was better than the fried-on-a-stick variety I'd been going on.

_But it had been mine._ I thought, going cold.  _I'd gotten it for myself without anybody's help, through money I'd_ taken, _from people who weren't strong enough to keep it. The only reason I'm eating now is because someone else didn't want it and felt nothing about tossing it_   _out._

_S' no getting around it. I'm eating garbage_.

I thought I was going to be sick, and it wasn't because of the bit of limp broccoli I was gnawing on.

Ended up tossing whatever I'd found back where I'd gotten it, and shoving my hands in my pockets as I walked out of the alleyway. Suddenly getting my hands chopped off didn't sound so unappealing.

Turned the corner with my head ducked low, and came face-to-face with an uglier version of myself, and the shock was enough to make me trip over my own feet and swear loud enough to scare the alley cats.

When I looked up again, the dread took hold, and I froze where I stood.

_Wanted._

_Woman. Stands around five Foot two age approx. 15. Loud spoken, unscrupulous, and foreign. Wanted for Disturbing The Peace in an Establishment in Furni, October the Fifth, as well as an Incident in lower Deningrad several days later. Possibly in Connection with H. Dell, wanted for questioning. Considered Armed and Dangerous. Reward entails…._

They even had a picture. A  _bad_ picture, to be sure, I've never had a forehead that big. But it had the slanty Rouge eyes down right, and my snub of a nose, so it looked like me in a vague sort of way, but not enough to really connect me to it. And I'm seventeen, goddamnit.

"Armed and dangerous," I muttered. "Fuck me, I just broke a chair over his head."

_Does Mullet have a poster?_ I wondered, but even though there were enough posters there to wallpaper a sitting room, none of them had anything approaching his picture. They all seemed to be done by the same artist; everyone had a big forehead, and he tended to give us all the same chin. On me it was kinda charming, my real chin was too pointy by far, but on most it looked weird as hell.

Once I could tear my eyes away from the bizarro-me, I took a look at the others.

I wasn't kidding when I said there was a lot. Most of them had much more going for them than simply "disturbing the Peace," and the money offered was a whole head above what they were giving for me.

And there, pasted on over all the others, on double-sized parchment in red ink, was Hiram Dell.

_Wanted_.

_Man. Stands around six foot One. Wanted for Petty Larceny, Grand Larceny, Homicide, Attempted Homicide, Manslaughter, Kidnapping, Treachery, Destruction of Property, Malicious Mischief, and Disturbing the Peace. Wanted for numerous Incidents over the last seven years. Considered Armed and Extremely Dangerous._

The picture was torn out, and some dingy picture of a woman with a big forehead wanted for arson stared belligerently out through the hole.

That Yellow-whatever guy I'd heard of before had his own poster up right next to it, and all that was left of his picture was a greasy smear and the remnants of a gap-toothed smile.

_Hey, Disturbing the Peace!_  I thought as I reread Dell's entry.  _I'm in good company_!

But still, my eyes went back to my sign.

That was a lot of money. And I'd seen batches of these all over town, even if I hadn't looked at them too closely before now. Anyone could put two and two together, wrong chin and all, and connect me to this poster. I stuck out like a sore thumb here at every moment.

Deningrad wasn't safe anymore.

I chewed my lip, then turned to go, somewhere, anywhere, and come up with a plan to get me out of here, when one last poster grabbed me by the eyeballs and about yanked them out of my head.

_Oh. My. God_.

Hadn't recognized him 'cuz of the mustache at first,  _When'd he find that?_ I wondered. But that axe blade of a nose would have marked him anywhere, and to see his black eyes glowering out above it gave me a turn and a half. His list of felonies wasn't nearly as long as Dell's, but his reward was higher than mine.  _And you've only been gone five years,_ I thought darkly.  _Gehrich, what the_ fuck _._

There he was, my cousin, slapped right up with your truly. Looked like he'd had about the same amount of luck getting an honest job as me, but at least he seemed moderately successful at it. The poster said that he was wanted for suspicions of connection with a string of robberies that had taken place across the last coupla years, and they were offering a shitload of money for him, too. They may not have pinned anything specific on him yet, but they knew enough to know that he was someone they'd love to get information from. _He's okay_ , I realized.  _I knew he would be. He's quick and he's smart and he_ knows what he's doing _, if he's evaded capture for so long._

He was  _here_ , if not in Deningrad proper, but somewhere close by. A couple of the events connected to him had taken place only a good four or five months ago, and he could still be nearby. My hands scrabbled at the poster as I yanked it off the wall and folded it into quarters (and quickly tore off mine for good measure, and ground it into the garbage at my feet.) Gehrich's poster went into the lining of my jacket, and I could feel its edges on my belly as I jogged out the alley a lot quicker than when I'd arrived.

Me and Gehrich, we thought a lot alike. We were both lazy fucks, for one. We'd never choose hard work and travel abroad if we had to, so if the opportunity for a free-meal and a place to stay presented itself, we'd stick put. He was still around, somewhere. Plus, he was a whole helluva lot better at fighting than me. It's true that Gehrich split and ran, but it wasn't because he couldn't cut it. He'd been in training with Dad from day one; he hadn't dicked around, slapping at straw dummies like the rest of us when we first started. He'd also gotten a lot farther than me, into the real stuff, shit like pressure points and which arteries to sever, and how not to get your claws stuck in some asshole's ribcage. Keys used to talk about him with this crazy little glint in his eye, even though he was Dad's protégée, like he couldn't wait to see what Gehr'd try next. He was  _good_. Good enough to avoid the guard for this many years, apparently, and still make this amount of noise.

_I have a Plan. It is a good Plan, and it will work perfectly, and I will have never go hungry, and Dad'll never find me, and I will be a million razor-sharp Claire-pieces all at once and no one's gonna touch me._

**0.-0.-0**

Picture an ugly part of Deningrad.

Not that it has many, mind you. S'fuckin' beautiful city, with a glittering fairy palace standing proudly and turgidly erect in the middle.

Like a  _penis_.

_Haaaaaaa_.

But still, it's hard to find any really depressing areas in Deningrad. It's a  _nice_  place, and the street cleaners take themselves entirely too seriously. There's always a policeman or two on nearly every intersection, and they've got enough bells and whistles, literally, to call an entire garrison down on any nefarious Peace Disturbers dumb enough to start something. There are no real slums to speak of, because even the really cheap shitholes I'd been staying in usually had all their shutters and doorknobs, even if the paint was chipped a bit. It ain't a real happening place for any kind of urban decay. Even the beggars don't seem to be your everyday oozing and smelling kind, just kind of shuffly and beady-eyed, and quick to get out of anybody's way. Deningrad was a funny place. There was plenty wrong with it, and in a couple of years all of this would be bent over a barrel and made to squeak for high hell, but all of that was kept looking pretty and smiling nice at the moment. Outside the city, the roads were falling into ruin, and banditry was at an all-time high, but not in this fine city of frost and crystal, no sir. Here, everything looked just like it ought to be, and they kept it that way. But the ugly parts are still there, if you know where to look.

I'd skirted around this area before over the last few weeks with one eye fixed on it the whole time like a spook-shy Runner. There was no mistaking it after a while. People around there acted different. Stood different, that kind of thing. They didn't chat up the guards like people did in other parts of town, and all the restaurants weren't the kind where you'd sit out in the open air and have a meal while you talked to your neighbors. Granted, it was the part of town where the Tannery was located, and you didn't really want to stand around in the open air to begin with because the open air took no prisoners and gave no quarter. After that it was mostly three-story housing projects and a couple of bars with no windows and a Really Big Guy with A Really Thick Neck standing at the front door. I never went down there, never had any reason to, but I knew where it was. It had a smell to it, more than whatever the Tannery gave it, something dim and moldy and full of teeth, and it made the hair rise on the back of your neck.

Now picture an ugly time of day to go with it. Say, six o'clock on an October night, when the sky's shot through with black murk, and the last of the sunset starts fading from the tallest point of the Palace. The lamps here are lit a helluva lot earlier than anywhere else in the city, because the lamplighters aren't going to hang around in the dark on Tannery Row longer than they have to. This is the only place in the city where there's garbage in the gutters for more than a day, and where whatever gets scrawled on the walls doesn't get painted over for longer still. Men with long mustaches show no signs of getting off to bed at a decent hour. Small children do not display any tendencies to help old ladies across the street. It is  _bad_. It is  _unwholesome_. It is a place of  _dark deeds_ and  _disreputable acts_.

(Granted, there was still a Tiberoan star church that was in good condition a few blocks over, and there were some very nice flowerpots outside some of the windows, but it wasn't giving out the same vibes as the rest of the city by a long mile. That would be kinda weird if it did though, because Tiberoans are into religion in a big way, and you only need one beaming old duffer to come up to you with one of those lanterns on a long stick asking you if you'd Found Your Guiding Star Today to make you glad you were in Mille Seaseau, where people at least left you alone if you were a godless heathen. Granted, they worshipped a big fucking stick in the middle of nowhere that crapped everything in existence out of a bajillion fruits, so their belief structure made about as much fucking sense, but they're  _quiet_  about it, you get me?)

Then, after letting everything sink in to its fullest extent, picture one of those tiny, windowless bars I mentioned a while ago (Not by the church. That would be awful. We are well away from the church at this point. Nothing worth mentioning happens next to the church.) Picture the aforementioned big guy standing out front like a three-headed guardian of the deepest reaches of hell, thick of shoulder, wide of nostril, and steely of gaze. Picture the warm, smoke-filled abyss within, where shadowy shapes like starved winter wolves move in a never-ending haze of ill-intentions and bad hygiene.

Then picture me, in my manky, fur-lined jacket over my old wraparound training gi, wearing my fuck-off boots, slinking through it all like a malevolent panther, towering over everyone in the room, my eyes spitting a baleful brown spit, my footsteps crunching into the floorboards, my chin lifted, my eyebrows defiant, my lips puckered-

Aw, fuck it, let's start over, this shit is beyond me.

The doorman at the front let me in after a long look-over, but since I kept my eyes down and since I only came up to somewhere around his belt buckle, he let me go on by. Instead of the cool, calm, collected way I figured I'd set out making my new Plan into a reality, I ended up just kind of walking stiff-legged inside and looking up through my bangs at everything while I tried to ignore the rock in my gut. I'd been making my way in this stupid continent thus far by trying to keep my head down (my success in doing so something else entirely, now fuck off). This was me walking into the lion's den. This was me meandering on in and aiming to kick a few lions around until I found the beaky-nosed one I was looking for. This was stupid. This was me being  _intensely stupid._

And scared shitless about it at the same time, but fuck me if I was gonna be dumb enough to let it show in  _here_.

Here was a fucking viper pit, forget the fucking lions, and forget how many metaphors I'm mangling. It was crowded. It was smoky, and too hot, and too loud, and there were  _too many people_. I wasn't nearly the only chick in here, but I didn't match up with any of them in appearances. Wasn't hanging off some guy's knee with somebody's hands up my drawers for one, and the only way I was going to get my hair curled like that would be if I fell down a flight of stairs with a box of corkscrews.

Didn't seem like there was much chance of me blending in by just sticking to myself and occupying a forgotten corner somewhere until I got the guts up to start asking around for Gehr. First of all, every corner was taken, and secondly, it didn't seem like anybody in here stuck to themselves much. Everybody knew somebody else already, seemed like, from the guys playing darts with a hell of a lot more of a sense of gravitas than the game warranted, to the tables playing cards.

I began, to my surprise, to hyperventilate.

I stumbled off to the side and disguised it as a coughing fit as I leaned against the wall and mentally smacked myself in the face a couple of times.  _Stop it_ , I hissed.  _You're freaking out over some women with breasts, a bit of smoke, and a bunch of idiots with readily apparent social lives! Shape the fuck up!_

_Someone's playing a harmonica!_ a smaller, but persistent part of me protested.  _TRULY THESE ARE THE BOWELS OF HELL!_

I was losing control, badly, and I could feel the Plan fraying away at the edges for every second I spent whittering around at the wall. The sheer fact that  _this shit was embarrassing_ was the only thing that saved me, and I suppose that it's my lonely little sense of propriety to thank for this story not crashing to a halt while I bolted for the hills.

_I do not give a flying fuck what these people think_ , I said to myself as I straightened up and made a show of checking my cuffs _,_ looking for all the world as if I was as far from giving a shit about my surroundings as it's possible to get.  _I am versed in the art of the Black God of the Thousand Islands_.  _My feet are as metal, my fists are as stone. I can crush mountains, I can drink rivers. I can make a guy cough up his testicles just by thinking real hard. Men in smoky rooms with bad haircuts mean nothing to me._

And weirdly enough, it worked. Sort of. I got a good enough handle on myself to remember why I was there, and what it meant if I didn't get it together and find Gehrich before he fell through a trap door somewhere and I withered away into a sad shred of nothing.

Best to just get it over with and forget about trying to seem like I belonged here or something. Long as I kept it together and acted like I knew what I was doing, I had a chance of finding out something before I got laughed out of there. And even if I did, I'd just head right down the street to any of the other smoky hole-in-the-walls in this district and try again. Besides, the worst they could do was laugh at me; I certainly wasn't gonna get chucked out for looking like a cop. I didn't look like a cop by any stretch of the imagination. Cops _bathe_.

_Think. What does anybody do when they go into a bar and they don't know anybody? They go up and they order a drink._

The Plan shuttered up around me again in neat, orderly rows and columns, the foundation secure. This was but a careful revision. The Plan was still in action, and I was still on both two feet. Besides, nobody was glancing at me sideways any more than was usual; something of a tussle had broken out in one of the lower tables, and in the added noise I slid my way through the confusion up the broad counter space where the owner guarded a wall of liquor. A couple of stools down by the end were free and I gingerly hopped up on one, then thought better of it and fixed a glower on my face fit to rival Dad's as I planted both elbows on the bar top and looked up out from under my eyebrows. It was one of his scarier looks, and I hoped I'd inherited it.

It all hearkened back to something Keys had said. Not, of course, pertaining to how to track down a guy who presumably doesn't want to be found, but still running along a few of the same basic principles. " _Claire, listen,"_ he'd said. " _If you ever find yourself bound and determined to fuck a goddamn beehive, then for god's sake, grit your teeth and stick your goddamn dick in while the stickin's good, because I can guaran-fuckin'-tee you that it ain't gonna be a whole lot of fun and it's best to just get it over with_."

Truer words had never been spoken.

I was knee-deep in bees, and there was no way out.

The bartender was over on the other end, talking to a sour-faced guy who hadn't shaved in the past half week, polishing a glass and nodding grimly along with whatever was being said to him. He was built along more or less the same lines as every other Deningrad male I'd encountered recently, fully bearded, light eyes, thick, solid arms with a hard, smallish keg of a belly up front. Not soft, but not one of your thin-and-whippy Southerners either.

It was comforting to know, while I looked him over, that I could probably take him. Wouldn't necessarily be an easy job, not without the clawed armguards I'd been trained with (which I was really starting to miss, on second thought. Made fighting a bit bloodier, or so Dad had told me, but having something to keep a sword from taking your arm off would be handy in a pinch). Now that I'd quit looking at people like they were gonna laugh at me at any second, I'd started seeing what they were good for instead. He probably had a truncheon or something just behind the bar, but I could nail him before then. Once, just a tap, get him off his balance, and two, finish it, just like my training. Hell, Dad even had a name for it back in one of his greasy old scrolls. He liked  _naming_ shit for some reason, like you couldn't just punch somebody in the dick, no, first you had to call it something like the Seven Gods of Eternal Infertility and get it fucken' notarized or something and  _then_  start with the dick-punching.

I felt my seat move, and looked down to find that my foot had started jigging up and down like it always did when I started winding tight. I was getting distracted.

_Quick, order a drink_. I thought.  _Good way to get started. Nothing fruity. Something big and impressive that could thin paint_.

It was then that I remembered that oh yeah, I was out of money, and I'd come here with a job to do. I could feel the panic rising again, my throat screwing shut, then shook it off like a bad dream.

_Beehive._ I told myself, inhaling deeply.  _Sticking my dick in_.  _Not a lot of fun_.

_Man,_ I thought, looking around one last time at the smoke and the noise _. You'd never be able to drag Lotta out of here_.

My thoughts snapped right back on track at that, and my shoulders squared up again. I cleared my throat, and leaned forward in the direction of the barkeep. "S'cuse me," I said, in one of my all-time best imitations of an un-fuckable-with person if I do say so myself. "You got a second?"

He ambled on over after he said his piece to the guy he was talking to, setting the clean glass down under the bar and tucking the bit of rag into his belt. "Evening miss," he said, not rudely, but not with much of anything in his voice. Still, it was a sight more polite than I was used to. "What's your pleasure?"

It was a corny line, but he said it like he knew it and had said it so many times that it had lost its potential for cheese long ago. But there was a still a ghost of a quirk in there somewhere, and I kind of liked him for it. Felt kinda bad about plotting to kill him a second ago. The quirk wasn't directed at me by any stretch of the imagination, but he was benign enough so far. He couldn't give half a shit who or what I was, and that felt pretty damn good to me.

Hopefully, I leaned out a little more across the bar and said, "I'm looking for somebody, and I think he'd fit in a place like this."

An eyebrow went up at that, and he pulled the rag out of his belt and started absently wiping at his hands with it. "Place like this, huh?" he said, dryly. "Fits some kind of type, then, your man?"

_Oh shit_. "Not like he's some kinda scumbag or anything!" I said quickly. Too quickly. "He just might be around here."  _Oh god that was lame. Oh god I just insulted him. Oh god they're never going to find my body. I swear Dad had a move for something like this once- Five Strikes of Humiliation? Black Ring Crow Hop? Shit On A Shingle With A Side Of Eggs? FUCK._

The eyebrow went higher, and the rag went back in his belt. "Look, miss, if you ain't gonna order a drink, then I suggest you find somewhere else to be."

"No, wait, listen," I said, scrabbling at the lining of my jacket and pulling out the dog-eared poster. It was a little the worse for the wear from being in my coat for most of the day, but the drawing was probably still decipherable. "I've got a picture- not a good one, but close enough- maybe you've seen him? Big nose, weirdly tall, his name's-."

The bartender was already turning away to a customer with actual cash on hand, shaking his head at me like he was sorry, but had better time to waste.

A spike of terror jolted right down through the base of my skull, and I stretched out across the bar after him, "Hey, please, sir, just look at it, maybe it'll jog your memory or something, just-"

"Well if this ain't one big ball of cute," said a bright, twangy voice behind me. "A search! A  _quest!_ I can't pass this shit up. Hand it over." The poster was snatched out of my hands before I could get myself back together, and I heard the stool next to me screech in protest as somebody who smelled like wood smoke and sour ale slammed down into it and leaned back up against the bar. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the barkeep paused in his trip back to the other side, and I could see his mouth go dead flat, but I was already too busy sliding back into my seat and jerking around to see the rude fuck that'd nicked my poster.

He had it halfway unfolded before my instincts finally took over and I cuffed it out of his hands faster than he could blink. He swiped after it fruitlessly, but quicker than I'd figured he'd be and almost had it again for one fumbling moment before it hit the floor.

There was a bit of a hair-raising pause afterwards.

The rude fuck sat up, and puffed air out of his lips like that was just too damn bad, and gave me this one sidelong unamused look and said, "Now what the fuck was that for, lady, I bet I coulda helped you."

He had a Serdian accent thick enough to butter bread on, all nasal sharpness wrapped up in a doughy drawl. Serdian enough in looks too; skinny as a half-starved fence rail, his skin blue white where it wasn't lobster red from the sun, and I bet his nose and ears would turn the same color in the cold. Big messy mop of strawberry blonde hair too, just like any other southern farm boy straight off the boat and still smelling of the summer harvest and his mama's cooking. I was thinking clodhopping farmer right up until I got a look at his eyes, and then all I could think was  _pirate. Pirate pirate pirate motherfuckin'_ pirate.

He had skew eyes the color of cracked ice, his lips wide and berry red beneath, and the one that wasn't looking at me was cockeyed off somewhere to my left, and they were too pale, too bright, and too fucken' familiar. Those were the eyes of every sonofabitch landsman-cum-sea-raider that had ever hit our island thinking that we couldn't fight back. Keys had spent his entire life killing these fuckers, and I'd spent enough time finding them on the beach, dead from  _our_ fighters, to know what they looked like. They all had that crazy cruel look in them, like they were going to torch and burn everything you owned and bend you over a chair when they were done.

I stiffened up like a water-scorched cat, and was about the bolt off of my chair with my fists cocked when his straight eye actually did look over to my left, and I realized that there was something blocking the firelight behind me. I heard the vacated stool behind my shoulder shudder as something  _huge_  slumped down into it hard enough to make it squeak, and my head jerked around quick, leaving my neck hopelessly exposed as I craned to see what the fuck it was.

Sitting next to me and smelling like he'd crawled out of a week-old dead dog's asshole was a seven-foot ogre the likes of which I'd never seen. Was surprised I hadn't seen, actually, as I never would've missed something that tall on my way in, so he must have just entered. He had yellow hair like greasy line rope and a face so bulleted with scars and sores alike that it was hard to say where the dirt, pus, and scar tissue stopped and real skin began. He actually had a sword belted to his back, stupid as that sounds, and had to sit careful in the stool just to stay on. But the sword was so long that there was really no other place for it to go. The long hilt wrapped in cherry-red leather peeked over his massive shoulder like a shiny surprise.

He caught me looking and his eyes were yellow as cat piss. The pockmarks shifted and he  _smiled_  at me, like a gash in the side of a long dead animal. Grey meat and splintered ribs.

My stool toppled as I flung myself out of it and got a good three feet of space between me and the giant. I didn't have my fists up, but I was standing with one hip forward, my toes curling in my boots and my eyes hard. These were good boots. I loved these boots. But I didn't know if they were up to the task of taking this ugly thing down, and really, I didn't want to put them through that. They deserved better.

"You know what," I said real carefully. "Golly."  _Think fast, say anything, get the fuck out of here. "_ I have just remembered. I am awfully late getting back to my dear grandmother, and I had just better get going."

I didn't dare let my pants-shitting terror show in my voice, because I could see the bartender still clutching onto his polishing rag like it was his last holy hope in a dark place. Really, that should have been my first goddamn clue to get out of there.

"Now hang on, I thought you were in some kind of hurry to find somebody," said the skinny, skew-eyed snipe who'd started the whole thing. "Me and my friends here are veritable fountains of knowledge, you know? Maybe we can help you out. Not from around here, is he?"

_Friends_? I thought.  _Unless the huge fuck is made from the composite parts of slain enemies, there's only the two of them_. Then I took one long look around and my belly sank to somewhere around my toes.

It was a group. A sprawling, big-ass group stretched out across the entire bar, from the guys playing the extremely serious game of darts to the men sitting at the tables. It was subtle, but you could see it in the way they positioned themselves, and the way they cocked their heads to each other. It had been happening the whole time, and I just hadn't processed it. Somebody on one end would make a joke and somebody on the other would laugh, or the way people on the opposite sides of the room would have half-shouted conversations, and then switch tables entirely to start talking to somebody else. No wonder I was the only odd man out when I first came in, everybody in here already knew everyone else and they didn't have to be lonely.

But they'd gone fucken'  _quiet_ when the poster had been snatched out of my hands. Not silent, nothing that obvious, but they sure weren't shouting at each other anymore, and the harmonica was nowhere to be heard.  _Thank god_ , I added darkly. But there was a lull there that didn't have anything to do with how late it was getting, and it made my hackles rise.

_Lion's den, viper pit, fuck the metaphors, I'm fucking_ surrounded.

Thoughts raced through me, and then slowed. I forgot about the ogre, and shifted my stance to face the skinny pirate properly. Relaxed. Stood straighter, and slid my hands in my coat pockets. One last grand gesture. "Shit, sir, you aren't gonna make my grandma wait, are you?" I said coolly.

He cracked a yellow-toothed grin at that, and relaxed in turn, propping himself up by his elbows as he leaned backwards against the bar. "Cut the bullshit honey," he said. "We're all adults here."

My eyes ran quickly to the group around me, then his huge companion, then back to him. "I'll have you know that I am perfectly good jailbait," I said rapidly. "And that such language is definitely not suitable for my delicate princess ears. Did I mention that I was actually a princess?" I added as a decidedly genius afterthought.

His eyebrows curved up in mock-surprise, "Well fuck me twice for a butter-stuffed thundercunt," he said dryly. "Royalty."

There was a ripple of laughter throughout the room, but still nobody was looking up.

I chanced another look at the door, but there was a long-faced man with stringy brown hair and dark shave-shadow on his face sitting with his chair propped up against it. He caught me looking and shrugged, once, then picked up his drink.

_That still leaves the windows_ , I thought, and then looked back to the pirate. "Listen," I said, cracking a shadow of what I figured to be disarming grin. "I've clearly made some kind of mistake in coming here, so just let me go on by and I won't tell the cops or nobody, and forget I was ever here. I didn't mean nothing by stumbling in what is obviously your territory, so just let me go on by, okay?" I got it all out in one breath, not looking at him in the eye and trying to pass for small for once.

"Lady, you're the one who came in here with a stick up your ass about this person you're trying to find," he said caustically, leaning down smoothly and swiping up the poster. He straightened up and hand it by the corners, but didn't unfold it. It danced back and forth in his hands as he canted his head to the side and grinned wide, his mad-dog eyes glittering, "You sure change your mind fast. And I just happen to wander in here with an aim to helping you out, and you start acting like this is some kind of thumbscrew session." He shrugged, his hands spread wide with the poster held in one like there was nothing up his sleeves, no sir. "Don'tcha want to know if we happen to know where to find him?"

I wavered. My hands curled in my pockets. I looked him up and down and was about to wind myself up for an answer when the bartender interrupted me. "Get out," he said harshly, his voice booming out in the sudden silence. "This minute."

Weirdly, it wasn't directed at me for once. He was looking straight at the skinny pirate, his hands gripping the edges of the bar so hard that his knuckles were stark white. His mouth was one forbidding gash in his face, drawn down so far it was almost comical.

"Shut yer  _fucken'_  mouth, Teagues," said the pirate shrilly, his accent thickening and his eyes going slitty mean as he whipped around fast. "You ain't got shit to say to me old man, now sit down and pour somebody a goddamn drink before somebody starts fixing to nail you by the balls to the side of a barn."

"You said you weren't gonna cause trouble in here again," said Teagues emphatically, his voice a burly growl. "I've paid up. I'm all squared with you, and I don't want nothing happening in my bar." His glare moved up to me, and it wasn't half accusing. I almost felt hurt.  _What did I do?_

The pirate rolled his eyes, and turned around to face him fully. "Fine," he said. "You got it. I swear on my goddamn bitch of a mother's grave that absolutely no harm will befall this establishment on this night, while I'm here. Happy? Want it in goddamn writing?" he sneered.

"Holy motherfucking Tree," I said in this weird, quiet voice that carried exactly how chock full of stupid I was feeling at the moment. "You're him. You're Hiram Dell."

The yellow-eyed monster at the bar made this made this wretched noise halfway between a snort and a clogged drain, and then gave a gravelly snigger as he wrapped a hand around the hilt at his shoulder and stood up. And up. And up.

Slowly, raggedly, every other man in the room set his drink and his hand of cards down and rose to his feet.

My throat locked.

"Gasche, buddy" said the most wanted man on the continent over his shoulder to who could only be the Yellow Jackal (which, on second thought, is the stupidest crime name I have ever heard in my whole goddamn life). He had the poster in his hands, unfolded and flapping idly in his hands and Gehrich was glaring out at me for the idiot I was. "Give the girl a prize."

I swallowed, and then nodded towards the poster. "You know him then?" I said thickly.

Berry bright lips drew up in a razor sharp smile. "Tall, sandblasted guy, acts like his shit don't stink and his checks won't bounce?" he said matter of fact, testing the waters.

I nodded, slowly. Close enough.

Hiram Dell cut loose a rather nasal laugh, and sat back down on his stool with his back to the smoldering bartender. "Shit, honey, I can tell you his exact whereabouts and his favorite goddamn color," he said. "I can tell you which hand he likes to jerk off with, and which of these cunts he's thinking about," and jerked his chin at the women around him.

_Too much information_ , I thought suddenly.  _TOO MUCH._ "Yeah, and?" I spat, and anger finally came trickling back in through the joint-locking terror, and my bones loosened up and I was facing him with my hands out of my pockets and curled into hard fists and my steel-toed boots dug into the floorboards like it would take a landslide to uproot me. I raised my chin and forgot about everyone behind me, and knew that if I could get one solid hit in I could kill him.

Possibly. If he wasn't any faster than I figured and if he really didn't have anything sharp up his sleeves. Right about now I wasn't too sure.

Hiram picked a bottle off of the bar top, looked over the label critically, and then pulled the cork out with his teeth. "He works for me," he said simply, around the cork. He spat it out, and proffered the bottle with one hand, "Now sit down and have a drink, I've got a few questions I'd like to ask you."

_Fuck_.

**0.-0.-0.**


	8. Chapter 8

 

 

> _It isn't a waltz._   
>  _But he'll dance a waltz to it anyway,_   
>  _knowing no better, and she'll chance it_
> 
> _along with him, neither aware of how hard  
>  it would be to do what they're doing  
>  if they knew what it is they are doing._
> 
> _-Choice and Chance at the Moorings Bar, by Michael Coady_

 

**0.-0.-0**

> _How do you like your blue eyed boy, Mister Death?_
> 
> _-Buffalo Bill, by E.E.Cummings._

**0.-0.-0**

"We are going to build a better fort," I said, squinting at the wreckage of the last one. "With a working door. And an escape hatch so that we'll have a way of getting out if they set it on fire again. Good jump by the way," I added thoughtfully.

Lotta wiped the soot from her cheek with the base of her palm, "Think we should tell his mom?" she asked critically. "You know. About the torches. And the names they all called us were pretty bad. We could get 'em for that, at least."

I shot her a narrowed, annoyed glance and hissed, "We do not  _tell_  on people." I jerked my chin loftily in the air, gaze stony. "We wreak bloody and terrible vengeance."

I imagined we looked quite the sight, two skinny girls staring in dismay at the ruins of the best fort the Rouge Isles had seen in a long time. It had taken us a week, scrounging building supplies from the jungle and wheedling the rest out of anybody who had anything to spare. It had been a good fort, and we'd even considered spending the night out there once or twice. But then I'd said something, or Lotta had, to one of the pack of brats that we kind of, uh, feuded with every once in a while, and then we'd wrecked their fort with big sticks, and then they'd gotten bigger ones and came after ours, and some rather unfortunate things had been said along the way, but all that really mattered was that our impenetrable fortress was a smoking ruin. And it was somebody's  _fault_.

It was a black day, but a somewhat glorious one. There had been six of them, and two of us, and while the only thing any of us knew about fighting was that Keys said that it was best not to aim too much for the kneecaps at our age (it had mostly been a lot of enthusiastic flailing), we'd still held our own. That was the important thing. Lotta was a towering scarecrow to most of the kids here, but if it gave her anything, it was reach. All I had going for me was sheer bloody-mindedness, but it had done well enough.

At the time, Lotta was a tall, golden, willow-switch next to lumpy little me, with hard, bright hazel eyes over a long, aquiline nose, her hair a tangled rat's nest the color of winter wheat. Barefoot and as grimy as I was, she still overshot me by a foot in height, and resembled nothing so much as a glowing Mille Seseauan battle maiden in our swarthy little corner of the world.

I, on the other hand, was a snub-nosed monkey waiting for a growth spurt that would never really come, with bony knees and elbows and big wide eyes. I'd gotten the worse of the muck in the fight, my cheekbone streaked with soot, and one of my shins blooming into dusky bruises where someone had kicked me enthusiastically. I'd gotten him though. I'd grabbed him by the shoulders and brought my head down so hard that I'd given him a bloody nose, and me an exciting panorama of stars.

Lotta became quickly bored watching me stand by the ruins muttering darkly to myself, and ambled over to sift through it with a stick and look for anything salvageable. "Think someone'll see the smoke and come looking?" she asked, lines furrowing in her pretty face. "That would be…. bad. I think."

" _Let them come_!" I cried, kicking what remained of our palisade. "We shall use their guts to braid back our hair and their testicles to decorate our doorways!"

" _Ew,"_ she said, her face screwing up in profound distaste. "Don't  _ever_  say that again. God."

I snapped my head the side as I heard a slight rustling come from the jungle to my left. "Treachery!" I shouted. "They return to rob us of our virtue as well as our pride! Castrate them and leave them for dead!"

"Honestly, the books you read-" muttered Lotta, but I was beyond paying attention at the moment, as I had screamed something high-pitched and wordless and thrown myself into the foliage.

Somebody with a great deal more experience than me grabbed hold of my shoulder and seemed to reverse my polarity with enough ease to make it embarassing, and that's how I found myself planting ass-first on the ground, spitting in astonishment.

Gehrich looked down on me in vague puzzlement from very, very high up. "Where the hell did you read something like that?" he asked.

Lotta had gone very quiet. And also very red. So I took it upon myself to stand up and talk for her, "It was an adventure book about the dragon war, and I'd only gotten to the bit where the Wingees start raping and pillaging Serdio when Lotta's mom took it," I said haughtily. "She said that it was too graphic."

"Winglies," corrected Lotta inaudibly, looking at the ground.

"Whatever," I said irritably. I looked back at Gehrich and brightened up. "You're here!" I said. "You're off training! We can do stuff now! Ooh, have you learned how to remove someone's hymen with your teeth yet, or is that tomorrow? I heard that you're learning cool moves now." I added confidently.

He looked even more confused, if possible, and somewhat alarmed. "Someone's  _hymen?_ Now I know you ain't allowed to know words like that, you been talking to Keys?"

"Not very often," I said edgily. "Not… today."

"Well don't tell your Dad that you know shit about hymens," said Gehrich slowly, scratching his head and shaking it at the same time. "He'll tie you out in low tide for the gulls to pick at, and blame me."

"Really?" I said brightly. "What's a hymen? Whatever it is, Keys said to guard it with my life."

He looked around at the still-smoking ruin of our fort, his eyebrows drawing down and making him look older. Gehrich was taller than anybody else I knew, even Dad, but still not grown into it. He looked like a big, brown, gangly stork, with enormous hands and feet and a nose he'd  _never_  grow into. He still hadn't mastered the art of shaving every morning, and was a little patchy at the moment, but still kind of good looking, or so Lotta swore. Something about sculpted cheekbones and a nice chin, I dunno. She had a deep-rooted, repulsive  _thing_ for him that she'd forbidden me to ever speak about in front of him, behind him, or anywhere near him, and I think she'd nicked one of his shirts once. It was creepy and wrong.

He was seven years older than us, and undoubtedly had better things to do with his time off than entertain a bunch of bloodthirsty latchkey kids, but he still came by every once in a while. I think he rather liked it, really. Like now. Even though he was still looking at me suspiciously, you could tell that he didn't mean anything by it. He tended to get really grim whenever he was around anybody that he didn't know that well. His face would close off like a trap door and whoever he was talking to would get increasingly nervous as time went on and it didn't lighten any. But with us, he'd just wince at the crap we'd say to get his attention, smack us upside the head if it was really bad, and then he'd take us out to lunch and everything would be all right again. Smack me, really, not that Lotta'd talk around him ever since she'd decided that she was going to have his big-nosed, hatchet-faced  _babies_ someday, and that talking would somehow jeopardize it.

See? It's disgusting.

Gehrich seemed to remember what he'd came there for, and scratched the back of his neck with one big, awkward hand as he turned back to us. "Anyway," he said. "Got out of training early, wanted to see if you two bugs wanna take a swim and have something to eat." He reached behind him to the bag he'd dropped in the bushes when he'd flipped me that looked suspiciously full of food.

"Neat!" I said, finally relaxing out of my vengeance mode. "We were sick of being dragoons anyway, our fort kinda…."

"….got conquered," finished Lotta in a very small voice.

"Yeah, that," I nodded vaguely, and turned back to Gehrich. "Do you have sandwiches?"

The last vestiges of stone on his face cracked off like cheap masonry as he smiled faintly, and reached down to rummage around inside the bag, "Think so," he said. "Shit, I've got a whole boatload of food in here," he said, then swore again as his face fell down. "I mean darn. I mean golly. I mean, don't tell anybody that I've been teaching you idiots how to swear, damnit, or I'll get in trouble." He straightened up, and rubbed his back with one hand, "So where do you two want to- Uh, where'd your friend go?"

I looked behind me, where until recently Lotta had been doubtlessly composing the wedding invitations behind my shoulder. Until, that is, she'd melted into the bushes like a friggin' ghost because Gehrich might have seen her  _(_ gasp!)  _chew things!_

"Uh," I said helpfully.

"No offense, Claire," said Gehrich slowly. "But your friend's kinda weird. I been meaning to ask, too, did she take one of my shirts the time you guys came over? It's gone, and I remember her looking at it funny."

"What? No. You're weird for asking. You weird man," I said smoothly, turning around. "God, don't be mean, why would you even saythat?"

"Nevermind," he said. "Forget I asked. Anyway, about your fort. What the fuck happened?"

**0.-0.-0**

We ended up heading to the same place we always wound up going to when he had the time, a tiny punchbowl of a bay on the eastern side of the big island. You could drop from the cliffs into about forty feet of clear, rock-free water, and the up-most corner of the bay petered out into a nice enough stretch of sand in the sun. Gehrich dropped his gear there when we arrived, and peeled his shirt off to start the climb to the highest point in the cliff, and I suppose it was just as well that Lotta hadn't come because she probably would have dropped dead on the spot. Me, I just shimmied out of my clothes until I was down to my skivvies and plowed right into the water. At that age, I remained blissfully oblivious that it might have been considered awkward, and it wasn't like Gehrich would care. He had remained unfazed by non-existent Claire boobs for many a year yet, and that was likely to stay the same until they sagged down to my knees.

I waded until I lost my balance on the rocks and dove forward, wallowing like a drowning cow until I felt like swimming normally, and finally headed for the middle. Gehrich was climbing hand over hand, also in his skivvies, scrabbling monkeylike up the cliffside with grim purpose until he reached the ledge at the top and got his feet under him and stood up. He looked strange up there, his arms so muscled that they made his shoulders hunch forward, the rest of him seeming small and awfully fragile. But then he squared himself up, turned his hatchet-shaped face to the side with his chin jutted out like the cliff could go fuck itself, lined himself up and threw himself forward. He fell, his long arms stretched out before him until they seemed to reach their limit, then sank into the water with hardly a splash.

I lumbered through the waves until I found him swimming to the surface, and as soon as his head broke free, I grabbed him around the neck, wrapped my legs around his chest and sank him right down again. "Show off!" I shouted as he thrashed like a gaffed fish trying to break loose. "Try drowning, it's much cooler!  _You will get ladies this way!_ "

His big arms suddenly fastened impossibly around me and tore me loose like a mussel from the rocks, and I found myself being thoroughly dunked in turn. I kicked and punched at him wildly, sending waves of water everywhere, and I evidently hit home once or twice because he let me up before I sucked in too much water.

He glared at me when I got myself together again, and I suppose that it's a mark in his favor that he could scowl and tread water at the same time. He still looked pretty ridiculous at the same time, with his hair slicked to his head and water beading in his eyelashes, but it was still a decent pissed-off brotherly stare. But then he let me ride him piggy-back to the shore again, and swooped me around to drape me across his shoulders like I was a dead pig he was carrying in from the jungle, and I cackled when he dumped me on the sand by our lunch.

"Forget I said anything about ladies," I remarked as I tried to wring the water out of my hair and peered blearily at him. "You don't deserve classy ladies like me."

"Honey, if I have done anything in my previous life to deserve a classy lady like you, then I am sorely sorry," he said dryly, sitting like a long lanky lump next to me. He tried to swipe away the seaweed dangling from his ear, but only succeeded in coating his hair in sand. "Now dig around in there and find me some food," he added, looking meaningfully down his nose at the bag.

I stuck out a long red tongue at him, then pulled it over by the straps to begin laying out what he'd brought on the sand as I found it.

Wherever he'd gotten all of it, he'd packed well. There was a canister of cold, sweet tea and cups to go with it, a couple of mangoes and a knife to skin them with, two sandwiches each, made with greasy, spiced chicken that was still warm to the touch. And hell, he'd even managed to snag a couple of pieces of cake, the white Continental kind that was so sweet it made your mouth gush.

Gehrich grabbed a sandwich first, and demolished about half of it in one awful bite, not even caring that I was an impressionable youth who was supposed to learn good manners. He chewed noisily for a minute, then squinted disparagingly at me and said, "Claire, don't eat the fuckin' cake first, that's for afters. Soa's tits."

"Not s'posed to swear at me," I said around a mouthful of cake, and then took a swig of tea right out of the canister. He tried to swat me with one big open hand, and missed. Pretended to miss, really, because I knew deep down in my smug little soul that Gehrich could break a guy's legs in eight different places before the guy had a chance to hit the ground. (It was true, I'd even heard Dad say mention it as part of the lesson plan.)

I sneered at him, and then proceeded to make a dripping, slimy mess out of peeling a mango before he took it away from me and had it skinned and sectioned and ready for eating in five seconds flat. I begged the pit off of him when he finished, and he let me suck the last of the flesh off of it with drooling abandon and he snickered at the sight of it.

When I finally spat the pit out into the sand, he'd finished his half of the meal and was leaning back on a rock, sipping tea from a cup and stretching his long legs out before him. He looked tired, more tired than any kid his age should, but he didn't complain when I insisted on eating my sandwich while wormed between his arm and side with my hair tickling his neck. He just tucked one arm around me and laced his fingers across his stomach, heaved an old man's sigh and said, "You're a lot of trouble, y'know."

"'m adorable," I said around my sandwich, both hands locked on the bread. I swallowed, and continued. "Like a goblin princess."

He snorted, jostling me, and wisely let it be.

I finished up my lunch, and made a great show of licking my fingers because I knew it made him wince. When I was done with that, I burrowed down into the space I'd allocated for myself, and tried to heave as big a sigh as the one he'd given, but coming from me it was a little thin.

"So," I said, craning up to look him in the eye. "What'd ya learn today?"

Another snort, but a harder one. He shifted his position in the sand until he'd hollowed out a more comfortable space for himself, and when he settled down again I wondered if he'd just let the question go by without comment. But then he opened his mouth and said in a voice so bitter it could peel paint, "Today I learned that your dad is a fuckin' loudmouthed schnook who'd tell a man he'd taken a shit wrong if he'd seen him do it."

"...Oh," I said finally.

I was very quiet for a moment. Then I said, very softly,"…Gehr, that sounded a lot like words I wasn't supposed to know."

He rumbled an wry laugh, and squeezed my shoulder, "I'm sorry kid, I said I wasn't gonna, and then I went and did. I'll try and keep a lid on it."

"S'okay," I murmured. "S'educational."

The silence was kind of awkward and full of loose ends, until he grudgingly said, "Leaned how to stab a guy in the heart with his own broken ribs yesterday, though, just by punching him."

He stayed stiffly silent afterwards. I digested this slowly. "That," I said finally. "Is  _so cool."_

He grinned, and reached up to smooth his hair back, and he looked like a suave young man again as he did so. "Thought you'd like that," he admitted.

" _Like_ it?" I said. "Can anybody do it? Can you teach me to do it? I won't use it on anybody, I swear, except for pirates and pigs and people I don't like and our stupid neighbors and maybe Lotta if she's being stupid and oh  _please oh please oh please_!"

Gehrich groaned and slapped a hand over my mouth and held it there until I stopped thrashing and finally pretended I was dead. When he let go, I punched him weakly in the shoulder until he made an  _oof_ noise, and only let up when he looked sufficiently apologetic.

The sun was hot enough to make the air in the jungle too muggy to breathe, but the wind coming off of the water was cool and salty and made both of us sleepier by the minute. Gehrich slurped up the last of his tea, which miraculously hadn't been spilled in our fight, then se the cup delicately down on the sand next to him. He was prone to random, precise gestures to make everything be as it ought to be according to him, like his whole life depended on carefully treated tea-cups and obsessively straightened carpets. Of course then he'd go on to roll up his sleeves and gut a fish or something like it was no big deal, but he still reserved small moments for small operations to make the world stay on an even tilt. Take now, for an example. He'd just ground sand into my nose not a moment before, but he still took the time to mop up my face with a spare napkin, and then lay back and smooth my hair like I was his to take care of, and it was up to him that I should look my best.

"Gehr," I said, noodling up to him like he was my favorite stuffed animal in the world and I was his sole noodly companion, but I was feeling serious. "Why don't you like my dad?"

He frowned, and looked down, and I could tell that this question made him about as uncomfortable and unhappy as it was possible to get, and I almost regretted the question. But then he inhaled deeply, and said, "Don't wanna make it seem like I want you to not get on with your dad. Kids your age should like your dads, and you don't do too well if you don't." He shifted, and added gruffly, "No kid your age should go around not liking their dad."

I stayed quiet, because this seemed painfully personal for him. Even though his dad had died so long ago that I didn't even remember him, he was still weirdly touchy on the subject of dads. "But you don't like mine," I said, almost biting it back.

He barked a quiet laugh at that, and then relaxed. "Nope, can't say as I do," he said.

"Why not?" I asked, leveraging myself up on one elbow, persisting because I truly wanted to know. "Is he mean? Does he beat you up? Does he not like you, is that why?"

Gehrich looked down his long nose at me, his brow furrowing. "You're asking me this shit like you don't even know him," he said. "You live with him. You know he'd never beat up on a student, where'd you get that idea?"

I fidgeted, and looked down. "Yeah, you're right. He wouldn't."

I didn't say that I knew my dad about as well as our neighbors did. I knew that Haschel was the greatest fighter that our Island had seen in a hundred years, and I knew that even Keys respected him for it. I knew that he was funny, that most people liked him, and that even though he didn't have that many friends, he was still well thought of. I knew that I had my side of the house and he had his, and that he didn't care if I stayed over at Lotta's house half the time because her mom cooked better meals, and because her dad would take me out in the garden to shell peas and pick lettuce like I was his own kid. I knew that he hadn't gotten over my mom dying any more than I had, and that he wasn't any more ready to talk about it with me. But when we did talk, we got along okay. We didn't have any heart-to-heart chats, and neither did we go out fishing or anything like Lotta did with her dad. He didn't dislike me, I knew that. He didn't think very much of me at all.

I didn't know if Gehrich really hated him or not, but I was hungry to know if there was some side of Dad that I hadn't seen, that he didn't show other people. I'd never heard anybody talk about Haschel like Gehrich did, and somewhere very deep down, I wondered if it was even true.

Gehrich let the moment pass, patted my arm for a bit, and we sat in thoughtful silence until he broke it by saying bluntly, "Claire, if you ate all of that cake, then I'm tossing you right back into that ocean."

"You wouldn't dare," I said sleepily, stretching one arm across his stomach. "You are an enormous boob, and boobs don't have arms. They have big useless nipples."

"Claire," he said darkly, eyeing what remained of our lunch. "I don't see any cake left, Claire."

"That's 'cuz I ate it all," I said simply. "Keep up, would you? That's your problem, you know. You're a big, slow, out-of-shape-"

He interrupted me by pinning me to the ground with one hand, and somehow in the ensuing tussle managing to pick me up bodily and tromp towards the bay with me held kicking and spitting above his head. I hit the water like a squalling cat, and Gehrich laughed like a friggin' lunatic the whole time.

There was a moment before my head broke through to the surface, where the sun wove light streamers all through the water and made it warm as mother's milk, and it was beautiful. I had water up my nose and sand in my eyes, but I was happy.

**0.-0.-0**

Hiram Dell, for a murdering bastard who'd effectively scared me into a pants-wetting cold sweat only a couple of minutes ago, could apparently be perfectly friendly when he wanted to be. He'd moved to one of the card-playing tables, and he had it all to himself because as soon as he'd sat himself down on one of the wobbling chairs, everybody who'd been there previously moved their game further on down without protest. Everyone who'd stood up to make his previous point had sat down again long ago, and the noise level was ratcheting right back up again. They were willing to let us blend in.

"Siddown," he said, propping his feet up on the table, and I saw that his boots were a beat-up version of one of the fancier pairs down in the market district, all brown leather and gleaming buttons up the side. "Take a load off, and we can talk about your buddy Gehrich."

 _Those,_ I realized,  _are ladies boots._

_Huh._

I was still standing in a not-quite crouch, just like I'd been trained. The fur collar on my coat itched against the sweat on the back of my neck, and every time I took a breath, the smell of unwashed-Claire came wafting out of my neckline and hit me like a dead cat in the face. I was cold, hungry, and this guy was confusing me.

I wavered over deciding. Looked from the chair, to the door, and saw that while one was waiting for me to sit down, there was still the long-faced man with the bloodhound eyes blocking the exit to consider. Not to mention that to get to him I'd have to cross a crowded room of bandits, with Dell and that yellow monster at my back.

I chose the chair.

He smiled with his blue eyes half-open and lazy, and said, "Atta girl. Sit tight, and I'll order us something. What's your poison?"

"Don't have one," I muttered, looking at the table. "I don't drink."

His eyes widened. "Now that is something I admire in a lady," he said, folding his arms in front of his chest and shifting until he got comfortable. "It ain't often you find somebody without vice in this country."

I sat still, nettled. He moved on, and stretched out his neck to yell at Teagues in that shrill, Serdian twang, "Hey old man, why don't you drag out a bottle of Metalriver '78, and get a pot of coffee going."

_Aw, fuck._

"You paying?" growled the bartender. Even thought he stood rigid and nervous as a cornered bear, he still looked at Dell like he was an un-housebroken mutt who was dragging his worm-ridden butt around on the carpet.

Hiram rolled his eyes hugely, and said, "Teagues, if I didn't pay, I wouldn't be considered no type of gentleman, now would I?"

Teagues snorted, then flinched as Dell's hand shot out and a heavy yellow coin ricocheted off of the bottle next to his ear with a rich  _cling!_ He stood and regarded the bandit for a few seconds more, then turned and vanished into the curtained-off kitchen. He didn't pick the coin up.

Hiram turned back to me, and folded his arms again, two of his narrow, nail bitten fingers resting comfortably just inside his sleeve. I hadn't even seen him reach for the coin.

"Where were we?" he asked.

"Gehrich," I said, sitting gingerly in my chair with my legs crossed and my elbows rigidly resting on the arms.

"Oh yeah," said Dell, looking straight at me without the merest flicker of a blink. Then he shrugged, and let up. "Tall fuck. Came out of nowhere a couple of years ago, and got on my team because he minds his own business and gets the job done. Likes breaking shit with his bare hands, which  _I like_." He gestured expansively with his own hands then, like he was throttling somebody and enjoying the hell out of it. "He just bulldozes right in there, with those  _big_  fucking claws of his, and he just mauls the shit out of people. One two punch, that kind of thing. By the time he gets done with somebody, there ain't a joint left in them that ain't been twirled around backwards and mashed into a fuckin' pulp." He folded his arms again, and smiled proudly. "Almost brings a tear to your eye."

He then shrugged, and said, "Not real ambitious, but hey, who is?"

There was a bowl of peanuts still on the table from where the card players had left it, and he reached out to sift through them until he popped three in his mouth and grinned at me with the fragments in his teeth. He shoved the bowl at me, and I shook my head. He made a  _well, what can you do_ kind of move, and sat back in his seat.

He squinted off in the distance, chewing absently on peanuts, then admitted, "Doesn't like me much for some reason, which I don't get, personally," he put a hand on his chest, fingers splayed, and I was suddenly riveted to the way that the fabric in his shirtsleeve didn't move right for something that should be so light weight.  _No sheathes on his belt, and no bulges on his arms. But he's got layers. That coat's long enough to hide most anything, and his waistcoat isn't a tight fit neither. He's got to have_ something _on him._ "I am a likeable guy. People dig me. But it don't mean he don't do good work, and he ain't one for asking too many questions, so he moved up pretty fast."

Dell had a rambling, wry voice that told stories like they were one-sided conversations with himself, but he kept my attention nonetheless. He had a funny way of telling them, like we were already old friends, knocking them back in a beat-up bar. This was more information than I'd dreamed of getting, he talked about Gehrich like a proud parent, and it almost made me warm up to him. But then, once he'd finished talking, he shifted down his chair some and gave me this lidded up and down look that made me skin nearly crawl right off my shoulders.

He looked up quickly, the laziness gone. My gaze snapped upwards to follow, my heart jumping into my mouth, but it was just Teagues coming back from the kitchen with a tray.

Dell watched with a tickled-pink expression in his mad blue eyes as Teagues set a bottle of clear Serdian corn whiskey (white-yellow moonshine,  _Corn Squeezin's_ , the shit that's so cheap that you can make it yourself in the basement in less than a month, but it said Metalriver on the label, and it was a '77, so apparently Dell liked the stuff) on the table with a shot glass to follow, and then poured me a cup of coffee so dark that it seemed to suck the light right out of the room.  _God, that's awful_ , I thought looking at it.

"S'why I come here, old man," mumbled Dell around a mouthful of peanuts. "The bang-up service."

Teagues shot him an acid glance that could strip paint, and set the sugar bowl down so hard that it cracked.

Dell sneered at him with long yellow teeth as he headed back to the kitchen. Then he sighed and leaned over and started spooning sugar lump after sugar lump into my coffee, then stirred haphazardly until the hot liquid started slopping up the sides. He pushed it towards me, and slumped back in his chair with the bottle of corn whiskey in his hand, breaking the seal and pulling out the cork with his teeth.

He glared at me around it, and switched the cork to one corner of his mouth like a stub of a cigar. "Drink your goddamn coffee," he said. "I bought you a drink, and now we talk. What do  _you_  know about Gehrich?"

He'd quit being friendly.

Slowly, and avoiding answering for the moment, I reached over and took the cup in hand and took a slow, dreadful sip.

 _Holy fuck,_ I thought in shock.  _You drown this shit in sugar and it isn't half bad!_ My sip turned into a greedy slurp, and half of it vanished down my throat before I set it down again.

"Spill," said Dell.

I wrapped both hands around my cup and composed myself. "Do you know where he is at the moment?"

He narrowed his eyes at me. "That don't sound like no kind of answer, short stack."

After a beat where I stayed as silent as the grave, he shrugged, and leaned over to take up the shotglass. Apparently he saw nothing wrong with pulling the cork out with his teeth, but he drew the line at drinking from the bottle. I could smell the fumes from where I sat. "He's getting something done for me. Out of town. Can't say when he'll be back," he said suavely.

"Where?" I said, setting my cup down. " _Just tell me-"_

"I changed my mind, let's skip you for a bit," said Hiram Dell, pouring himself a jot of whiskey and holding it thoughtfully to his chest as he stared me down. "I'll level with you, even. What I want to know is," he knocked it back in one go, and didn't even clear his throat afterwards, "...why would  _Gerrrhhrich,_ a guy who said he had no family, no friends, who's off doing something for me that ain't nobody 'cept me is supposed to know about..." He drew the name out like it was the topnotes of a fine wine.

I stiffened.

He set the bottle on the table, and balanced the glass on the backs of his fingers, "It gets me to wondering, is all. Why's a guy like that got somebody like  _you_ showing up and looking for him like he's her long lost sweetheart. Gets me to wondering what else he's neglected to tell me about."

He swept the glass up in one hand, and pointed a finger at me. "Your turn."

"He doesn't know I'm here, I swear," I said quickly. "He left me behind a long time ago."

He smirked, "Yeah? You winning him back?"

My eyes narrowed. "He's my brother."

"Bullshit," he said, his lip curling. "Gehrich's  _tall_."

"Cousin, then," I said, ignoring his last statement. I wrapped my hands around my cup to give them something to do. "Look, he's the only person I know in this whole stupid city, and I need to find him."

"How 'bout you start giving  _me_ some answers in this li'l game of ours, yeah?" he snapped. "What was he running from when he showed up? What're  _you_  running from that's got you scared so bad that you're running to big,  _teddybear Gehr_  for shelter?" he sneered, and I realized that this guy would read me like an open book then rip up the pages for shits and giggles.

Then he became serious. "Where are you guys from, anyway? That's another thing that Gehrich never told me."

I stayed mulishly silent. I had gotten myself into most of the shit I've ever been in by talking at the  _wrong fucking time_ , and that wasn't going to happen now. Gehrich never let on where we came from to this asshole, and I wasn't going to either. We've been killing people like him for hundreds of years, it's why I do what I do, and why my father  _taught it to me._ I may have been shithouse lousy at it, but I knew why we did it. To keep people like Dell out.

Hiram Dell kept his eye on me for a long moment, before he puffed air out of his lips and sipped down another shot, not slamming it back like the last time. He nursed it between both hands on the table, then looked at me in exasperation. "Look. Even though you say that you and him got nothing going on behind my back, I really ain't got time for this silent treatment bullshit. He ain't going to be back for a while now, you hear me? But when he does, I'll do you a favor. I'll tell him that you came looking for him, and we'll see if he thinks that you're important enough to start looking  _back_ , all right?" He finished the last of the shot, and muttered into the glass, "You're lucky I'm doing that for free." A finger shook out and pointed at me. "You got a name?" he said.

"Claire," I said, my heart sinking.

He nodded, then quirked his lips up in a grin. "Yeah? Nice name. Well, have a nice night, Claire, and enjoy your coffee." He stood up to go, then glanced up at the grandfather clock in the corner. "Just make it quick, because I may or may not be planning something tonight, and it ain't such a good idea to stick around. Of course," he said, and here he grinned wolfishly, "You leave now and I figure you're off to call the guard on me.

He picked up bottle and glass in both hands, and moved back to the bar where Gasche was waiting for him like a smoldering dragon. "Just sit tight, and finish up nice and slow," he called back. "Can't get into too much trouble."

" _Wait,"_ I said.

He stopped, comically, both hands kinked at his sides like I'd stopped him in mid stride. Thought he was so goddamn funny. He turned, slowly, his narrow, foxlike face peering over his shoulder and I could see his one skew eye trained on me.

"Hire me," I said, sitting bolt upright in my chair and gripping onto the table for dear life.

It had to be this way.

I had been heading down the road to this exact spot ever since I'd hit dry land. I'd set myself on this path ever since I'd snatched up my first purse, ever since I'd left Mullet coinless and friendless at the entrance to the city. There wasn't anything else in this world left for somebody like me, not for somebody who'd done what I'd done. I was a  _taker_. I  _took._ If I wasn't busy dancing down a rain of shit on somebody else, it felt like my skin was about the slough right off my bones and my teeth were going to chatter out of my head. I'd been poor and purposeless for too damn long, and without it something driving me on, I was going to end up with just me, alone, and in the dark, with the memory of what I'd done.

_I had to find Gehrich. After that, we'll see. But it doesn't matter what happens to me, or how long it takes, or what I have to do. It's something to do in the meantime. And I'll keep on filling it as full as I have to so I never have a spare thought to devote to anything that might drag me down._

I barged on before he could interrupt me, or laugh at me, or strike me dead, whatever. "I'm fast. I learn fast. And I'm as good as Gehrich, maybe better."  _Maybe. Definitely a big maybe._ "Just let me stick around until he gets back, and I'll do whatever you need me to do."

He watched me expressionlessly with that one funny eye for a long time, and then it squinted up into a wide, awful smile. "Now ain't that something," he said softly.

I held my ground.

Hiram gestured at me with the bottle in his hands, and drawled, "I hate to break it to you short stack, but if you wanna be my lady, you gotta pass the entrance exams." He gave me that barracuda grin once again, mocking teeth and heartless eyes. "And we tend to grade on a curve."

I kicked the table away from me with a  _crunch_ , then stood up and faced him stiffly. "Try me," I said, my eyes blazing straight to his without flinching.

_I may have only come up with this plan a couple of hours ago, but for now, it's the best plan I've got and I'm sticking to it. Gehrich, I'm coming to you, and I don't care what I have to go through. Like the books. 'Fearlessly yon into that dark abyss' and I make my mistakes like that, fearlessly._

Hiram Dell regarded me for a moment more, then shrugged. "Let's do it." And then he turned around, upended the bottle, and started pouring premium-aged, white-amber Serdian corn whiskey in a long, splattering trail all the way up to the bar and along its length.

Teagues appeared out of the kitchen when he heard the noise, and sputtered incoherently for a moment before finally coming up with, "What the hell are you  _doing?!"_

"I," said Dell, behind the bar at this point, and also out of whiskey. He grabbed a different bottle of something dark-colored from the upper shelf, squinted critically at the label, then smashed it on the bartop without much fuss and it too ran dripping across the floorboards. "Am burning your bar down, Teagues."

"But you said-  _Why?!"_ answered a flabbergasted Teagues, and it was chilling to see a man so large and in control be suddenly reduced to this. He seemed to remember himself in time, and drew himself up, his voice becoming hard. "You promised that no harm would befall my establishment. I did everything you asked, and I haven't said a word. And you  _burned my last bar down."_

"I surely did, old man, and that is a damned shame." said Dell brightly, tossing bottle after bottle to his men in the crowd, who wordlessly caught them, broke them open, and started swilling them about the place. The cardplayers helped too, evidently they'd finished their game in time. Gasche sat like a huge, yellow, muttering lump at the bar, his huge arm reaching up and taking hold of his sword hilt like it was going to save him.

"But the poor little darling here," Dell continued.  _Poah li'l dahlin' heah,_ his sodbuster accent thickening inexplicably, mangling the words until they were barely recognizable, and I flushed red with unfathomable embarrassment. "-needs to find her man in a hurry. So I figure, why wait? Why not get the whole shebang going now? Emphasis on the bang, old man," he said, grinning like a stoat, "Because this shit is going to go up awful fast." He was about the toss a bottle out, then caught himself after getting a look at the label and his eyebrows shot up to his hairline. Then he simply tucked it into his coat, and kept moving. "'Course it ain't real necessary this time, I can find another way to see if her money's where her mouth is, but get this straight, Teagues," he spun, his coattails flapping as he carelessly smashed a bottle at his feet. "I don't like you. You ain't real polite, and you ain't nowhere approaching grateful half the time, so yeah, it's a real hoot being able to torch your new place just like the last one."

He stopped, shoved his hands in his pockets and cocked his head at Teagues. "You got any marshmallows?"

Teagues was fed up, and everything he owned was about to be burned to death in front of him. He was a big man. He had a chance of making this work. He lunged.

Gasche didn't even have time to properly snarl before Teagues had his right cheek pressed into the liquor-soaked bartop, gasping for breath as his left arm was twisted up behind him so hard I think I heard something crack. Hiram Dell was above him, crouching on the bar itself. He'd jumped up there the second before Teagues had moved and there was a pearl-handled, snicker-sharp butterfly knife held suggestively close to the barman's neck.

I'd been right. He probably had more than that showy, flippy specimen of a knife (the kind that Keys had always kind of sneered at, but grudgingly admitted their finer points. To put it simply, faced with a guy with a sword, you were fucked. Faced with a guy with a sword who had no idea that you were right next to him and wanted his ass bleeding all over the carpet, you'd fucking won already.), but he definitely didn't need anything bigger. Not when he had  _him_ , I thought, glancing quickly at Gasche, who was cursing in a liquidy rumble while trying to unhook his sword. He's got that monster for the muscle and the reach, and that little scrap of a knife  _to make a point_.

He was making one now, that was for sure.

Teagues groaned something into the bartop. I couldn't catch it, but Hiram, with his strawberry-fair hair dangling right onto the barman's face, heard it loud and clear and chuckled, "You wanna know  _why?"_

He ground Teagues' face even harder down onto the countertop, unmindful of how much he sputtered.  _'Boo hoo, poor Teagues, can't catch a break, nobody cares about old Tiggly-wi_ nk, is that it?" he grinned into his hair, the knife slivering around his throat.

His voice darkened considerably, thickened, like tar, and he pulled his arm up harder, making the man gasp. "I don't  _forget_ , Teagues. I don't forgive neither. You can run away and start over as many times as you fuckin' want to, but I will  _always_  catch up, and I'll  _always_  be there to burn it to the fuckin' ground." His lip curled up into a smile so sour it could pickle pork as he leaned in even closer to grind out in his ear, "And you can get older, and fatter, and sadder all you like, because I will  _keep coming back, Teagues."_

And Teagues, almost sobbing, not strong enough, not batshit-crazy enough to take someone like this on, slumped like a dead bull, and didn't move a muscle as Hiram spun the knife around like a mad ballerina in his hands and let it disappear somewhere into his coat and hopped off of the counter.

The room reeked of good brandy and worse whiskey gone to a horrible waste, and my eyes watered from it.  _Keys would have called this a crying shame,_ I thought, marveling at it all.

When I next looked round, most of the gang had already trickled out into the street, leaving me, Dell, and his trained attack-ogre alone in the fumes.

Dell had a lamp in his hands. Walking quickly, he shoo'd me and Gasche out of the place with one hand, carrying it carelessly by the weighted base by the other. You could see the oil sloshing around inside. When he had both of us successfully located somewhere near the exit, he skipped back on one foot, hefting the lamp up high, then threw it with a grunt, his tongue between his teeth.

I couldn't see if Teagues had made it out or not, I craned my neck to see, but Gasche shoved me rudely in the back to make sure that I kept going, and by the time the lamp exploded against the back wall, spraying the room in flaming oil and chunks of glass, I was stumbling out the door.  _I'd liked him, he was polite to me, he asked me what's your pleasure and I said no look at this, and I did this too him._

The thought wasn't worth bearing. I crammed it down into a hot dark place, and snapped my wits about me again like a fur-lined cloak. Gasche slunk down the street to where the rest of the men were waiting, grumbling a steady stream of hate to himself as he did.

Now that they were in the full light, I saw how many there were. Not as many as I'd figured, eighteen, maybe twenty of them, none of them all that young, but no real greybeards either. Those that had obvious weapons didn't draw them.

There was a muffled  _whomph!_ from the tavern as several scattered gallons of aged liquor caught light rather suddenly, and Hiram Dell came dancing out, one hand buried in his hair as his berry-red lips stretched out in a delighted, crazy grin. He ducked down, laughing crookedly as a window exploded behind him, sending glass shards whizzing onto the cobbles. It was night now, true night, the last of the sickly sunlight gone from the sky, and the Never-Setting Moon was blazing like a glowing green monster. Its sickly, iridescent light was caught in the glittering spire of the Palace, but it was nothing compared to the roaring inferno building in front of us.

The heat scalded my cheeks and the wind it created sent my hair whipping back. Everyone shuffled back slowly, as it quickly became impossible to stand too near the fire. It had came to life with horrific enthusiasm, and there were awful crunching noises inside as the beams gave way and crashed to the floor.

For the first time all night, I was warm. I could feel  _everything_ , from all my fingers, to the blood rushing to my toes and the hairs rising on the back of my neck. My pupils were probably shrunk to the size of pinpricks in the face of that awful light and heat, and some poor old guy I didn't know might be burning to death in there, but I still had the craziest urge to tilt my head back and howl at the moon.  _Not afraid, not alone, got a job to do. There's something to be said about having the freedom to make the wrong choices._

"That's right," muttered Dell, looking like a black paper cutout against the inferno, a ragged poltergeist lounging in front of a backdrop of hell. The fire had overtaken the roof at this point, and was sending a colossal smoke signal miles high into the murky sky. It had long since been noticed by this point, and I could hear the beginnings of screams all around. " _That's it_. Scamper on over to check out who's been playing with matches, I know you wanna." His skinny hands were beating ragtime on his legs, every inch of him snapping and shaking like he was a man itching for a fight. "Got a  _brand new kitty_ for y'all to play with."

_Black God of a thousand isles, Master of the broken sword and the shattered lance, Father of the eyeless skull and the circling birds, curl your fists around our hearts and strip us of our weaknesses._

(The old prayer, said so many times that the words were burnt inside my eyelids.)

He was looking straight down the street, in the direction of the palace, grinning like a werewolf, the wind whipping up a wave of sparks and ash that ruffled through his hair as it howled through the night. There were no Runners squealing, no creak or rattling of the fire wagons. They weren't coming.

_Make me as strong as your greatest champion, make my body the vessel of your terrible vengeance. Grant me Thy Fury. Grant me Thy Power. All that I am, I gift to Thee as tribute to Thy great name._

"If you're as good as Gehrich, then you might be able to help me out on this one, kitten," said Hiram Dell lazily to me. " _This_ ," he said, jerking a thumb to the flaming tavern, "is one hell of a distraction. They get wind that me and snaggletooth here are setting fires on Tannery Row, and they'll be coming over in bucketloads. You keep them busy long enough without dropping dead and my guys over on the other side of town get to pull of a stunt so huge they'll be talking about it for  _years."_

Sounds of marching, coming nearer. Hobnailed boots on broken cobbles.

"What then?" I said, popping my knuckles one by one. "You kick down the  _No Girls Allowed_ sign and let me climb on up into the clubhouse, is that it?"

He cackled, rich and delighted and loud, his mad eyes gleaming. "You survive this, sweetness, and I make you into my own little pet monster, how's that?"

_My feet as stone, my fists as the hurricane that rocks the isles. My black heart to Thy black majesty, I gift to Thee._

They were here.

A squadron of the Deningrad watch, armed with truncheons and little else. Luckily so, because without armguards and claws, I was rather nervous about taking on a sword. Dad would say that I wouldn't need them if I was good enough, but oftentimes it's a lot easier to block a blow than slide out beneath it. But I could do it. I could do anything at the moment, my blood was humming through my veins a mile a minute, and I was jigging in place like a kid at her first dance recital.

The captain, the only one in full armor, both chain and plate, strode out from the protection of his men and stood firmly at the head of his column. "Hiram Dell," he called out, his voice hale and harsh. "You are hereby under arrest for crimes  _most egregious_ against the sovereignty of Mille Seseau."

Dell, his voice twanging bright and shining discordance against my ears, replied "Officer, Mille Seseau's a three-dollar fuck that's gone and come down with the clap. I'm just giving the old girl one last ride before her cunt fills all the way up with pus and there ain't no fun to be had in it anymore."

"You shall be brought in by force, if necessary," continued the captain regardless. He drew his sword, a clear rasping note in the howling of the fire.

Hiram Dell walked up behind me and set two hands on my shoulders, leaning in close. " _Impress me_ ," he breathed into my neck, my skin shivering under it, then gently pushed me forwards.

 _Nagarujuna of the Black Waters_.  _I name Thee now and beg Thy favor._

The roof gave way entirely, and the tavern vomited flames into the night. I stood silently before the guards before me, my head bowed, my hands quiet at my sides. I was standing directly between them and the gang, Hiram Dell at my back, taunting them on.

They were approaching slowly, confused, I guess, by the fact that Dell didn't seem to be resisting much. I could almost see what they saw- a short, snub-nosed girl built more or less along the lines of a brick smokehouse, with too-large boots and a too-small coat. Standing before them stiff and silent as the grave, outlined against the flames.

A buzz in the air.

My hand reached out and batted the arrow down before it found its target in the middle of Dell's forehead, almost before I'd even heard the whine of its passage. It clattered to the cobbles. Barbed iron head, cedar shaft, white goose fletching. I'd been wrong about the extent of their weapons. No matter. I could do this all night.

Behind me, Dell made a small noise of approval.

Moving with quick, authoritarian jerks, the captain directed one of his men to subdue me. A stocky fellow in the blue and white uniform of the city guard came forward cautiously, his truncheon in one hand.  _Hard to tell what's beneath the tunic_ , I thought coolly.  _Could be chain mail. Better play it safe. My feet are armored. My hands are not._

He was older. He looked nice. Probably had grownup kids of his own somewhere. Easily towered over me. Had grey hair and nice eyes.  _Had bones that could snap and a skull that could cave like a burnt sugar crust._

He approached me slowly, then raised his truncheon and moved forward more confidently. He was going to hope that I'd duck, aim right for my skull, not hard enough to kill, but hard enough to lay me out on the cobbles like a puking drunk. Moved like he knew what he was doing, like he'd done it before and knew what to expect. The truncheon was black oak, steel capped, a leather thong looped around his wrist.

I was aware of so many ridiculously small things, like what his weapon was made of, or how old he was. How the sparks flying out behind me stung on the back of my neck and how the heat sucked the air right out of your next breath. How one nagging blister stung on the back of my right heel, how the sugar from that one cup of coffee had started thrumming through my veins and roaring in my ears.

He was within reach. He raised his arm, his weapon, his duty, and moved forward. I saw him do it, judged the distance and moved.

I batted the truncheon aside with the flat edge of one palm just as it came whistling towards my head, almost exactly like I'd done for the arrow. He staggered, overextended, but didn't get a chance to move again because I'd shifted to the side, furled one leg up to my hip and cannoned it out exactly as I'd been trained, catching him full in the chest with the hobnailed surface of my boot. His breath exploded out of him as his ribs cracked like cheap ship spars and he flew backwards, landing hard on his back with his truncheon falling uselessly out of his hand.

 _No chain mail,_ I thought distantly.  _Not standard issue. The state's too cheap for that, and how many city cops are meant to deal with anything more than a barroom brawl?_

I couldn't feel a goddamn thing anymore. Every noise was shut off, muted, even the ones in my own head, leaving everything around me blissfully quiet for once. I danced backwards on dainty feet, then snapped myself back into stance before he'd even hit the ground. I stood still as death, and then he began to moan.

 _...Glory,_ whispered a small, small voice that nobody could hear but me, and everything spiraled down and down to a little pinprick of light resting directly on the captain.

He twitched, a little. Shocked. Angered beyond belief, by the look of it. His helmet didn't afford me an excellent view of his face, but I saw a hard mouth drawn tight, and then his arm jerked up, sword drawn, and all twenty-five of his men poured towards me like a dam breaking.

The spell broke and I lunged.

**0.-0.-0**

The first time I punched a stone wall, I broke my hand.

And the second time. And the time after that. Cracks, breaks, greenstick snaps, and compound fractures.

Keys had wrapped them up for me each time, and with every break, with every bone that popped free of the joint and pushed up through the skin, I healed up, and the bone became stronger in the place where it had broken, each time. By the time I was sixteen years old, I'd broken my hands so many times in so many places that the bone was as dense as stone, and I could break through brick like it was cotton candy. My Dad kept his promise. I had ugly hands. Each knuckle was pounded flat and as calloused as the soles of my feet, and I could do a whole hell of a lot of damage with both of them. I had trained every day for five years, beginning the very week that Gehrich vanished. I was as good as he'd been when he had, maybe better. I was a disciple in the Rouge Style, an initiate in the mysteries of the black war god. I'd learned dragging my feet and sneaking off on the odd day to try to pretend to be a normal girl, but I'd  _still learned._

I'd been wrong, some of them did have swords, short gladius types with one honed edge. I skipped underneath them, yanked my vulnerable arms out of the way long enough to slither up into his guard and drive my point home. My feet were ironshod nightmares, rattling on my too-small feet like nut hulls as I whipped my knee up and drove my foot into the hollow of one man's throat, cutting off his shout and his breath before he could bring his weapon to bear. Moving on, skittering across the ground like a spider between the raindrops. Not daring to pause for more than half a second, whipping my hair out of my eyes just long enough to clear my vision, the calm silence gone, my blood roaring for  _death death, more death, heap it on with gravy running down the sides_.

Was I killing people? I couldn't tell. Couldn't slow down enough to think, but I wasn't concentrating on killing people, just on getting them  _off of me_  long enough to stay alive. Something else had taken over my hands now, was jerking the strings that ran along my stubby-puppet legs so that they did  _this_ and moved _here_ and danced a whirlwind around my opponents.  _The Rouge Style's all in the footwork, it's one fancy two-step after another with a snazzy spin thrown in for good measure. Never been kissed, never been in love, but I_ can  _kill a man eight different ways before he can hit the ground, and that's all I know how to do._

Someone got a lucky hit, sneaked under my guard of whirling feet and one-two punch and there was a line of fire laid out across my ribs. I yelped, my vision went red, and I thought  _I miscalculated, I'm out of shape, I haven't been practicing since the first night I hit land and it's showing now. I can't be this slow if I want to live._ I wanted to concentrate on the fight, wanted to move fast and hit hard and feel beautiful, but all I could see is Lotta's face, and Lotta's eyes, and Lotta's bruised forearms after yet another training session where I let my Dad get to me and hit her harder than training warranted, and she let me get away with it because she thought I needed it. And there was no feeling beautiful then, nothing left for me that wasn't death and pulp on my fists, because my Dad had taken that away from me little by little every day for  _five fucking years_. I can't go home, I can't make a life for myself, all I can do is cram my heart way down in the edges of my fingers and strike home.

I wiggled my way through the heaving press of bodies until I was coming up hard on a straight path to the captain, his shining plate armor blazing orange in the light from the fire. He had his sword out, pointed at me, and he was shouting to his men to stop me, to do anything, when I was on him.

I hit him twice, leaning back both times to gain momentum and rocketing forward, and he reeled each time. His armor dented like cheap tin with each strike, but my hands were all right, I'd lined the shot up, I'd hit true, and when I'd finished that, I pulled the first complex move that had ever been pounded into my head by my father, somersaulting into the air and bringing the heel of my foot straight down onto his helmet.

He stumbled back, his sword dropping out of nerveless fingers, then dropped like a fucking rock.

I scrambled to get my back against something solid that wasn't on fire, or trying to kill me, and sucked air back into my lungs.

A reprieve, they were stepping back to regroup and catch their breath, and I was grateful.

I'd made sure that a good number of them were down for the count, but there were still too fucking many. I was backed against the opposite wall, facing the fire, my head drooping like a wounded wolf as I gasped for air, one hand clutching at my blood-soaked ribs.

Half. Half of them down, and hopefully I hadn't killed some of them in doing it, I thought remotely. Most of them were still moving, clawing their way across the cobbles to escape the center of the action with broken arms, broken kneecaps, or broken ribs, and they wouldn't be bothering me again so soon.

 _All I have is the power to break bones and end futures, and if that's all I've got, then I'm going to throw myself into it headfirst and brave that terrible darkness with my chin up high_.

They paused along with me, still silent, still focused on bringing me down before they moved on to Dell, who was standing yards away from the action like a grinning scarecrow. But the moment didn't last, it couldn't last, because I was still standing and still were they. This wasn't going to be over until the last of us fell.

One man moved forward, blindingly fast, and I let go of any of the formalized art as I slipped past his shoulder, spun around while planting one hand on the back of his head, and forced his own momentum to carry him forward, headfirst, to connect with the opposing wall with a sickening crack. No Rouge Style now, this was straightforward  _brawling_ , and I dropped all of my iron-hard discipline and leapt, spitting and flailing, straight into the heart of the pack.

They redoubled their efforts, and got a few good hits in that made me cry out and stumble, but for every halfway-decent strike that made its mark on my body, I retaliated with enough force to make sure that they could never give another one. I hit to incapacitate, to wound beyond all recovery, and they screamed and fell and cried because of me. All I could hear was my father in my ears, listing the steps to the next sequence, correcting my mistakes in that withering baritone and making me feel about ten inches tall with every passing second.  _Keys always said that_   _I fought like a bad joke, all awful buildup and a terrible punch line that would have you rolling on the floor regardless, but my Dad said that my fighting was a joke any way you looked at it and he wasn't laughing._

 _Because this was what I am, this is what my father taught me to do, to rain down death with my curled up fingers and to break down walls with my bones. Because I cannot make and I cannot give I can only break and twist and kick and stomp on the remains because Iammyfather'sdaughter and he has taught me_ war _._

_Because I sang a song to my father by the sea, sang it to him even before I knew he was listening, sang it once when I was small and sweet and still loveable, about the kids I was going to have someday that I would never leave alone, not ever, who were going to grow up to be beautiful and happy and spoiled rotten, and never alone, neveralone, and my father listened to me and said very quietly to me that thisishow you break a man in half and hereishow you shall learn to do the same._

_Because I'd once dreamed of being a Lottasister and not a Hascheldaughter, because Keys was my funny old uncle who said that I was going to drivetheboyssocrazy someday only I never did, never could, they never looked my way nor touched my lips because Iammyfather'sdaughter and nobody can stand in the way of what I'm going to become, a blood drenched, bone-crunching butterfly crawling out of a grisly cocoon._

_I am doing it now, and I am doing it for you, and because of you, and because I know no better and never could learn any different._

_Because after I've sold my soul and burnt down everything that ever cared about me, it all boils down to this:_

_I've fucked up. I'm killing people. And my Daddy didn't love me._

**0.-0.-0**

After it ended, there was only silence. The fire had been prevented from spreading to the surrounding buildings by some miracle, and the only thing that was left of it was a smoking ruin that had hardly anything left in it to burn anymore. I couldn't hear it, couldn't hear anything, but the last thing that crawled down into my consciousness was Hiram Dell saying softly, triumphantly, "Hot  _damn."_

I was sinking, sinking down into the bloody cobbles where I'd danced my bonesnapping dance, and I was going to fall and crack my head open on the stones after finally passing my test. I slumped, falling already, but at a word from Dell, Gasche loomed over me, scooped me up, and threw me over his shoulder like a sack of Claire-potatoes.

He smelled like death, honestly and truly like death, and I sank into it, earnest and grateful, and curled my fingers into that darkness like it had been too long coming.

I begged for forgiveness one last time before the lights went out, as if I was anywhere near that realm of possibility by now, and then my heart, quite simply, gave out.

**0.-0.-0**


	9. Chapter 9

**0.-0.-0**

> _Hands, the fit of them, to the neck. God's making_
> 
> _an end for the arm, murder, His, forgive me, my_
> 
> _pronoun, my rage, if in practice I lift them_
> 
> _to the window, morning's jet mirror, who, and what_
> 
> _you did, the cracked bell within, is not evil, but to ring it_
> 
> _is._
> 
> _-Flaw, by Bob Hicok_

**0.-0.-0**

_Black claws looped around my midsection, locked around my throat, twining through my fingers and curling around my fists. A hot, black voice like hornets raging and gulls screaming in my ear, misting my cheek with its breath. "_ Mine _," it said._ _ **"**_ Mineminemineminemine-"  _until I howled and twisted free like a gaffed fish._

_Big nose, big, craggy hands, and a hatchet-shaped face- Gehrich. Strapping his clawed armguards to his forearms, crusted and_ grimy _with blood, with white, filthy chunks stuck in the claws that were bits of skull and brain and hair, his face flat, bleak and as full of foreboding as a pregnant thunderhead._

_Dad barreling down on me, his form perfect, with both hands open palmed, slipping through my guard like herring through a gill net and barking out corrections in that snarly voice and_ Ihated him.  _Hated him like a rock in my gut, hated him like it was all I could do, as if everything I'd ever done in my life could only add up to fuel it._

_The world shifted. Spun on its axis like a crazy spinning top, righted itself, and plunged downwards, and I was on a platform by the sea, the gulls circling lazily over my head, and the waves breaking far beneath._

_A memory._

"So," said Dad. " _This_  is the partner you found."

I snuck another glance at Lotta, safe in the knowledge that he  _definitely_  wasn't looking at me when he said that. She looked impassive, which I knew meant that she wasn't happy about anything in particular, and her hair looked funny all tied back neatly behind her head. She'd remembered to do it before she came- which is more than I'd ever done, back before Dad had held me down and cut it himself, saying that any disciple of his would  _look like it._

"Show me your stance," he said suddenly. Sharp and too quickly.

She didn't let on if she cared or not- just dropped right down into the half-crouch, half-squat thingy that  _hurt like fuck_ the first couple times you tried it, and I still didn't like it any. But she assumed it easily, and she looked good doing it, natural, like I never did, and I flushed at how much I hated her for it.

I was short, gawky, and fourteen, and my father had told me last night that I needed someone to train with.

He crossed his arms, scar-shiny and hairy where the skin peeked through the leather of his metal-studded arm guards. He never put on his full claws for training, but he'd had me grease them up and learn every strap before he'd even let me try on the practice ones. "First movement," he said. "Snake of the three rings."

She didn't even look like she had to think it over, just melted right into the forms. It was basic stuff, stuff Keys had drilled us all on before the winter rains had froze his back up into immobility, but I'd never nailed the nuances of it. Basically you just alternated slotting your heel into the crease of your hip on either leg, moving slow and snakey-sure the whole time. It wasn't worth shit in a fight- stupid, really,  _anybody could do it_ m but Lotta'd picked it up fast, like she picked everything up fast, while Dad was still pounding the baby stuffinto my head.

"That's enough," he said, and Lotta slid to a halt just as she was reaching the top of her upward curl, and stood so still that she almost looked like she was at attention. She gave me a nervous, questioning look then, but I stared at the deck boards at my feet and pretended I didn't see.

_I never should have asked her in the first place, I_ knew  _she was better than me at this._

"Your dad's Gennady, works out by the docks, right?" Dad asked her shortly.

She nodded. Then flushed, because she knew and  _I_  knew that he was going to ask about her dumpy little Serdian mother next, with her blonde hair and white skin and her headscarf and little shrine to Soa in the back of the house, and the gall to marry one of our own and bring a little pirate into the bloodline.

But he didn't. He turned to me instead.

"This changes nothing," he said. "I'll train her right alongside you, but that's only because you need someone besides me to trade blows with. If this doesn't work out, and you show no improvement, she goes."

Lotta flushed again, her pale face going a, blotchy red. Every kid on the island dreamedof having Haschel train them- he was the best there was. Better than anyone's dad, better than Keys, and  _way_ better than Gehrich. Not that he'd cared about any of it- he'd always only ever picked one student, one disciple, and I'd been it this time.

Until I'd turned out so hopeless that he'd figured he'd  _have_  to bring someone else in to keep from killing me himself.

_The training platform was hot, too hot, and everything was spinning, and the sun was stabbing down into my eyes, and I became conscious of a great weight on my back, claws digging into my shoulder blades, and breath hot against my neck._

_And I fell back into the fever-dream, dove in with broken hands and bleeding shins and murder on my fingers and in my mouth and on my teeth._

_And then it was Lotta, swimming up like a bright fish through dark waters- yellow curls and hazel eyes and laughing lips, but I lurched away and keened my loss into the darkness. The enormity of what I'd done welled up before me like the breakers on the beach, but I'd dig my way down into the sand and stay there forever before I'd let them crest over my head._

_And everywhere, always, that cavernous, patient voice in my ear, like ships dashing themselves to death against the rocks- "_ Mine."

**0.-0.-0**

Ideally, I should have woken up in some fairy-princess treefort run by a bunch of enthusiastic freedom fighters, being fed grapes and sparkling wine while I lay back weakly against the headboard of my featherbed and slowly recovered from my wounds. There would be hot water and porcelain bathtubs and criminally expensive soap, and right when I was at my squeaky-cleanest and a little tipsy from all the grapes and champagne, then Gehrich would wander in with, fuck, I don't know, a puppy under each arm and his hair all slicked back like a millionaire, and we'd have a big party and Hiram Dell and his yellow monster would die miserably in a fire offscreen, because they were way,  _way_ too creepy for this kind of story. And then there would be dancing and green tea and slurpy-sweet mangoes and the sun would set on my perfect, sparkly, resurrected life.

Instead, I woke up sprawled on the trampled grass under a wagon with blood drying in my nostrils and every knuckle split and crusted over in yellow and pink, and I wasn't redeemed, and I wasn't dead yet, and I don't think that I've ever done anything bad enough to deserve that.

I felt like shit.

A small, pitiful sound crawled out of my throat and set up shop.

I had that same feeling of my joints having rusted solid in my sockets that I'd had after I'd gotten the tar kicked out of me by the Moss Dresser, like everything from the shoulders on down had locked up and thrown away the key. I lurched sideways, confused about where I was,  _when_ it was, why I was lying in the grass under a huge fucking wagon with my brains half knocked out of my head, when the pain hit.  _Really_ hit. Not just my knuckles, but  _everything_. Every strike I'd taken the night before was screaming for attention, and the slice on my ribs was  _sticking to my shirt_ , and I'd just  _ripped a bit of it free_ , and that was about when my vision went all woozy.

When I woke up again, I don't know how much longer, I found out that I'd actually managed to throw up on myself. Hot, yellow sick all over the place.  _Fuck_.

I sat up. Managed not to bonk my head on the bed of the wagon, and sat rubbing my sore head with the heel of my palm.

And then…

My head jerked up, and this time I really did manage to whack myself a good one on the wagon bed, sending stars careening through my vision. I couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't think,  _nothing,_ I was just scrabbling as quick as I could to get out of there, to get  _anywhere_ -

_Had I killed anyone?_

It was like patting down my pockets for my keys or something, that thought-frozen double-check with my mouth gone all dry and my throat locked and vomit-stink and fear-stink crowding around my nostrils.  _Surely…_

No, I couldn't have. I'd knocked them down. I couldn't get in the real killers, the fingerholds and jabs that would take out eyes or worse. Couldn't punch through chain mail, and I hadn't gone crazy-vicious, like…  _like when_ …

No. I'd punched my hands raw just trying to knock those men over. I'd broken bones. Gone for the kneecaps, elbow joints, and hell, even the crotch when I could. I'd hit them hard enough to incapacitate them, even if I had been a little off my rocker at the time.

Because.

_Because I couldn't bear that._

_They were just a bunch of men doing their jobs and looking after their part of the city, and then I jumped in and pounded them flat, they were just fighting back and protecting the peace like they'd been ordered and I ruined that, but I swear I didn't hurt them and I didn't mean to and they'll probably be all right-_

But.

Some of them hadn't gotten up so fast. Some of them went down, and stayed down.

There'd been  _crunches._

I realized that I'd been worrying my bottom lip the entire time, rolling it back and forth over my lower teeth, but when that bad thought came, I bit down hard.

Squeaked, loudly, it hurt so bad, with salt-stupid tears swimming in my eyes and vomit on my chin, and I was gross and dirty and small and  _evil_  and I fell over myself crawling out from underneath the wagon like a starved animal gone crazy with the cage- stumbled, fell, looked up, and was then confronted with the most beautiful death I'd ever seen.

It hissed.

Whatever it was, it was a turkey-sized bird with a feathery cobra's head and a beak like a pair of steak knifes lashed together by some idiot with a penchant for sadomasochism. As I watched, transfixed, it hissed again and rattled out a fan of scarlet tail-feathers, each one tipped with an enormous eye the color of an oil slick.

The thing hissed again, drawing it out and ending in a rattling purr as it stepped delicately and menacingly from foot to foot. Bemused, I made the mistake of looking it in its mad, beady little eyes.

And lost myself as easily as that.

Don't quite know how to explain it, but my thoughts went all syrupy soft as everything outside of those eyes went as mushy as oatmeal. It was actually a relief, of sorts. The bird cocked its head to the side, fixing me with one eye as it sidled closer, its gait hampered by the fact that its claws were so long that it couldn't even flatten its feet.

I blinked dreamily as it wandered close enough for me to smell the rot underneath its feathers.

I never got to figure out exactly what that bird was going to do to me, because then something with hands the length of my forearm grabbed it by the neck and wrenched the head off before it had time to scream.

Not before  _I_ could, through, which I did, rather embarrassingly. A choked off bark of a scream.

Gasche was standing with the deadly sharp head of the bird in one meaty hand and rest of the body still flopping and spurting weakly in the other. He was slouching like always, but he had a sniggery grin on that ruined face as he looked down at me that seemed a lot more intelligent than I'd figured him for. Sprawled on the ground as I was, I only came to about the top of his boot.

The snigger turned into a wet, coughing laugh as he tossed the head in my face and stalked off, dragging the rest of the bird by the stump.

I sat, staring at the head that was lying in the dust just in front of my nose, and thought Very Deep Thoughts about Not Screaming, when the guy from last night with the bloodhound eyes walked up and muttered, "Aw shit, what'd he do  _now_?"

His accent was drawly North Serdian. I slowly tore my eyes away from the bird's head and looked up at him, helpless.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, looking around with a resigned expression in his hound-dog eyes. "Fuck," he said, feelingly. "That crazy asshole walked off with dinner."

**0.-0.-0**

He said that his name was Miles, and stood at least a head and a half taller than me, and was built more or less around the lines of a coat rack. He wore a natty old coat with a stained collar and bright flashy buttons all the way up to the top, and fingerless gloves so old that they were coming apart at the seams. He had the kind of weathered, morose, slab of a face that could have come from anywhere from Serdio to Fueno, and stringy brown hair that fell in his eyes.

He also, apparently, had no idea what to do with me.

"You, uh," he said, gesturing at me vaguely with tobacco-stained fingers, "hurtin' any? Could take a look at it for you, if you like. Me and my crew tried to see to it last night with a bit of Fog and brandy, but the Boss wasn't letting us get anywhere near you, even if you were bleedin' like a stuck pig. He just kicked you once or twice to see if you'd bled out yet, and when you gave a grunt or two, he left you pretty well alone."

_Um._

He saw the look on my face, and spoke up quickly, holding his hands up, "Naw, naw, it ain't like that. He don't give a shit about that kind of thing, trust me. Um. Far as we know."

I must have still looked like I was about to either cry or throw up again, because then he got to his feet quickly and muttered something about me sitting tight for a spell while he got me some breakfast then vanished before I could speak again.

I was sitting in a stiff huddle by one of the wagons- a different one from the one I'd woken up under. The Runners who'd pulled it were tied up across the clearing, wrapping their long, rubbery lips around the wisps of hay that poked out of their feed nets. Somebody had taken good care of them, even if I knew that there was no way in hell that they weren't stolen.

_Stolen…_

Bits of last night, past the carnage, past me passing out like a wet sack of tragedy on Gasche's shoulder.

_Sprawled, bleeding and shuddering on the floor of a jolting wagon, the wheels going so fast that whenever they hit a rut in the road, they leapt a mile into the air. Blood welling up under my fingers as I clutched my belly to me like I was ten kinds of pregnant and doomed to miscarry .I knew I was muttering to myself but it sounded so bare and desperate that I couldn't listen to what I was saying, but the gist of it was out for everybody to hear- hot shame, hot fear, and bright, glorious despair like a supernova._

_I smelled Gasche all around me, the yellow stink of him, and something horrified me about him, something I couldn't even name. He was sitting awkwardly in the front, too big for the wagon bed, and folded up like a cripple in order to fit. And up in the front seat, whipping the Runners into an even higher frenzy, cackling like some crazy coyote at the bloody dusk, Hiram Dell._

I'd ripped my shirt a little. The corner of it I'd been holding. Tore it apart like it was rotten cloth.

This shit was getting  _boring_.

My hand shot up and gripped the splintery edge of the wagon as I hauled myself to my feet and grunted in order to better ignore the sick, raw twist it brought to my sliced-up ribs. I'd live.

Fuck that. All of it.

I'd done the best I could. I may have landed ass-first in a river of shit, but at least I had somewhere to _go_  now. I'd been stumbling around for weeks now, dreading that I was going to drop off the deep end at any moment, dreading that I was going to run out of money, dreading that I was going to fly off the handle and seriously hurt somebody.

_Dreading that I was going to slow down for three seconds and have to actually start thinking about what I'd done._

But now, it was different.

I didn't have to think. I didn't have to agonize anymore over decisions that were over my head. I didn't have to dwell on anything anymore, because I had a job to do. A grisly, terrifying job, sure, but an extremely busy one that promised to throw me into the inferno at every given opportunity. I wouldn't have  _time_ to think. I'd be so busy keeping on my toes that the nightmares wouldn't have room around the edges to slink in and start up their screaming.

And here, there were no consequences for what I'd done. Nobody cared if I was a runaway, or a murderer, and the guard couldn't touch me as long as I stayed with the gang. They were  _good_. They were so good that even  _Mullet_  had heard about them. Dell had five-thousand gold Millies riding on his greasy head, but they hadn't caught up with him yet, and they wouldn't catch up with me either.

And there was no forgetting that Gehrich worked for that crazy fucker, Dell. Yeah, he may have been out robbing old ladies in Tiberoa for all I knew, but he was coming  _back_. All I had to do was sit tight, play my part, and keep from killing anybody until he did, and then,  _then…_

Well fuck me, I had no idea what then, but at least Gehrich'd be back and things would start looking up for once.

I was standing, wobbling a little, but all the more determined for it, clutching the end of the wagon a little looser as some of the tenseness went out of me. The thought calmed me.

Gehrich could come back, and I could explain everything, and everything would be forgiven. He'd know. He'd understand. He'd tell me that my dad was a dick and that he'd pushed me too fucking far and it wasn't my fault, none of it _,_  and he'd rescue me from this fucking _lousy_  place with the fucking  _cold_ nights and I'd be all right again.

And I would stop having nightmares.

A cough from behind me. A smoker's cough, wet and chest deep, but still managing to sound polite.

I turned and saw Miles.

"Uh," he said, holding a bottle and a napkin full of food and looking hung-over. "I got booze, and um," he squinted into the napkin, "Some cocktail olives. I think. Want some breakfast?"

He sat down right up against the back of one of the lying-down Runners like it was some beat-up old couch that wasn't going anywhere. The Runner barely blinked at him at all. He waved me over, and I followed, nervously, because I wasn't all that easy about Runners any more than I was all that easy about him.

It was funny, this moment. Here I'd been puking over myself in panic just a couple of minutes ago, and now here I was, in the middle of this tiny clearing in a stand of the biggest trees I'd seen in my entire life, leaned up against the hot, scratchy back of a piebald Runner while a dead-eyed man with a wry mouth handed me a napkin full of yeah, cocktail olives, which was so pathetic and hilarious that I just started cackling.

Miles gave me a kind of worried look, which yeah, I guess I could see coming, since I was still covered in blood and puke and my eyes were probably still bloodshot as hell, but he waited until I was finished, then offered me the bottle. It was Fuenan palm wine, sour as a bag of lemons and vinegar, and I choked a bit, but managed a mouthful because it tasted like home and was better than nothing. Miles took it back with a shrug, then tipped it back and drank in such a way that I knew he'd be dead within ten years. When the bottle was empty-  _dead_ empty, the inconsiderate fuck- he tucked it carefully beneath his elbow and started rolling a cigarette. "So," he said mildly, and slightly muffled around the packet of smoking papers he was holding in his mouth while he fumbled his tobacco pouch out of his pocket, "Cousins, huh?"

The urge to cackle came back, but I squashed it down, knowing that full and complete hysteria wasn't far off.

_Just couldn't get that image out of my head, of Gasche popping that head off like a dandelion._

"Yeah," I said, only somewhat wheezily. "Yeah, we're cousins. The brother thing seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Bit of a longshot, I reckon," he murmured. "He's, uh," and reached a hand up and waggled it slightly, " _Tall."_

I rolled my eyes and started popping olives in my mouth, then gagged once I found out that they were the fancy, gross kind soaked in vermouth.  _Gah_.

"Yeah, uh, one of the boys'll get something cooking as soon as they start waking up," he muttered, looking at me with some guilt. He licked the roll of paper, then rolled it over and sealed it neatly. He was even better at it than Keys. "Plus, some of the reserves from last night haven't come back yet. Once they get in, someone'll start seeing about dinner, that is if Gasche'll let anybody near that bird he bagged. He's, uh,  _funny_  about trophies."

I was momentarily distracted by that terrible image, but then was startled when the Runner I was leaning up against shifted slightly, then craned its ungainly neck around and started vainly striving for the olives in my hand with its long lips. I relented, halfway because they were gross, and halfway because puking and then downing palm wine made any kind of food seem like a bad idea, no matter how hungry I was. The Runner's lips, bristly with short, white hairs, whuffled a bit on my wrist, and then sucked the olives down. It started taking a great deal of interest in the rest of me, and would have gone halfway down my shirt if Miles hadn't hauled back and smacked it on the nose without spilling his tobacco. It started, swung its head away, then forgot the whole thing and started chewing its cud.

"You know," he said around the cigarette, striking a match and lighting up. "There's a bet going on that you're Gehrich's old girlfriend from Lidiera."

"Yeah?" I said, idly scratching the Runner's dusty belly.

"There was also a bet going round last night that you'd be at the bottom of a dog pile in two minutes flat," he said wryly. He grinned lopsidedly. "Won some decent pocket change for it."

"Fuckin' wrecked my hands doing it," I muttered, and stared down at my scabbed-over knuckles.

"Yeah, well," he rumbled, amused. "We ain't got any kind of action planned for the next couple of days. They'll have time to heal up." He snorted. "I'd say you'd gotten lucky, but shit, that ain't no kind of luck I've ever seen."

There was a roil of uneasiness in my gut that wasn't just the palm wine. I didn't know what he meant by that.

He took another punishing pull off of the cigarette, and asked suddenly, "So, Gehrich teach you that then? That whole one-two hi- _ya_  business?" making mock jabs with his gloved hands. I wondered if he knew how silly he looked, and then I wondered if that was how silly  _I_  looked.

"Nah," I said, shaking my head slowly, and trying to scrub the sticky olive and Runner residue off on one filthy pantleg. "We both got taught."

He grunted, then gestured with the cigarette, "This would be in Lidiera, then."

"No," I said, nettled. "Jeez, enough with the Lidiera, I've never even-" and then I snapped  _dead_ shut as the realization that I was being pumped for information more smoothly than I've ever been in my entire fucking life hit me like a hammer between the eyes.

"Hn," he grunted again once the raging silence suggested that I'd spoken my peace. The smoke wreathed up into the air undisturbed. He shrugged blithely. "Thought not," he said.

I didn't like him as much anymore.

_Didn't like myself as much either, for being so stupidly desperate for a friendly face that I'd started spilling my guts at the drop of a hat._

"So what you got planned now?" he asked eventually.

"What, got a bet running on it?" I shot back, still embarrassed and angry as all hell.

He shrugged, and said nothing for a moment.

Eventually, he took a drag and said flatly, "Three hundred Millies riding on you skipping out within a week. Six-ought-fifty on Gasche getting jealous and guttin' you while you sleep."

An entirely different kind of silence took hold.

He took one look at me and laughed. "Yep," he said, hound-dog eyes watching my pale face with amusement. "You  _damn_ lucky that bird showed up before he did."

"Wouldn't…" I said slowly. "Wouldn't… Dell…"

"Dump your body in a river after he'd quit laughing? Sure," he said. "Probably keep a souvenir, too. Toss it at Gehrich when he got back. Like that bird's head of yours."

He nodded at the sad, gory thing in the dust, yards away. My eyes went to it, then flinched back again like I'd been burned.

_Asshole._

Shakily, I planted a hand on the Runner's withers and began hauling myself to my feet. "Thanks for the booze," I said shortly. My voice was clipped, each word snapping off like a finger breaking. "Dunno what I'll do with all the advice. Hope somebody gets rich off me."  _God knows I won't._

He gave me a searingly unamused look, and his voice went hard. "Sit the fuck down before you hurt yourself, runt, and I'll explain a few things to you."

My legs were trembling with the force of how tired I was, but I stayed standing.

He was Hiram Dell's man. He'd proved that much. Last night and today. And what was more, he seemed to think that it was a barrel of laughs that everybody thought I was going to go down in flames.

And I was sick of being laughed at.

The seams in his forehead increased, and when he next spoke, he sounded kinder. "Look. Kid. I'm the only one in this whole sorry outfit who's gonna let you know what's going on with your, uh,  _cousin_ , and the boss. And believe me. This is shit you're going to want to know."

….. Fuck.

It was the  _kid_  that did it for me.

Black Gods help me, he sounded like Keys.

"Sure you aren't just hedging your bets?" I asked gruffly.

He grinned, his long slab of a face lighting up like a break in the clouds. He'd have been a good looking guy, if he was twenty years younger, and didn't look like his liver was about to spontaneously implode. "Might be," he said.

I wavered, then gave up and shuffled on back over to the Runner and sat down again. I tried not to feel too ridiculous. It didn't work so well.

"Right," said Miles, rubbing his hands together thoughtfully while his cigarette stayed wedged firmly between his teeth. "Now then. You came in here thinking that you knowing Gehrich would give you a leg up, yeah?" he said grimly.

I was quiet for a moment, then said, "... Didn't think it would hurt, no."

"Yeah, well," he said bitterly. "Wipe that thought right out of your head. Pronto."

"Oh," I said.

_Shit._

He took a deep breath, and a bottomless drag, and then spoke thickly around the smoke.

"Gehrich's a decent guy- I like him well enough, and so does most of the crew. Pulled off some crazy shit with him on board, lemme tell you. But the boss...." he trailed off, his eyebrows coming down in the middle. He grimaced, then waved a hand expansively. "They never saw eye to eye. Which is as it should be," he said, jabbing a finger. "We ain't supposed to see eye-to-eye with the boss on most things. We just get the job done. End of story. And to give him credit, Gehrich  _got the job done_." He grinned, showing one yellow eyetooth, then shrugged. "But then he started taking a more, uh,  _managerial stance_. And he was good at it. Got the boys organized, jobs started going like clockwork, and that became a problem, since Dell don't like that sort of thing."

".... people taking charge?" I asked, somewhat hesitantly.

He shook his head, "Things going smoothly."

He started idly scratching the belly of the Runner he was up against and continued. "Time was, Dell'd just up and  _skullfuck_  anybody who started taking on more than he should, but who knows why he didn't- maybe the timing was wrong, maybe he was bored, and maybe- now you keep your  _fuckin' mouth shut_  about this," he said, turning on me suddenly and glaring like a wolverine, and I shrank back. "Maybe," he said, darkly, "Maybe he didn't think he could."

While I sat back and digested that, he shrugged again and brought the cigarette up to his lips for another peaceful drag. "So when Dell got wind that there was some work needed doing off in the middle of bat-fuck-nowhere, and sent Gehrich."

"And you don't know where?" I asked, sounding more anxious than I'd meant to.

"More'n my life's worth, sorry," he said, shaking his head. "And that's all besides the point, really," he continued. "In the end, it don't matter if me and the crew thought Gehrich was all right- Dell don't like him, and Gasche fuckin'  _loathes_ him, and just when Dell was getting madder and madder over the fact that he couldn't seem to get anything over on your cousin, in you pop, cuter'n a button and twice as bright, and bingo, problem solved."

He sat back, apparently satisfied with his speech, while I stared glassy-eyed into the distance and tried to get my head around it all.

So.

The plan I'd made, you know, the plan where I was going to ride a blissful wave of Gehrich's good reputation? Was apparently not going to work.

To a baffling degree.

It's not easy realizing that having one's plans coming to shit has become somewhat of a regular occurrence.

See, the thing is, I'm not good at coming up with plans.

…As you might have noticed.

I'm not good at thinking on my feet. I can't come up with something clever on the sly. All I can do is think up an easy solution and dive in headfirst, and it's  _never_ worked, and I'm beginning to think it never will.

"So he wants to use me," I said, my voice as wooden and tight as a shut-up box. "Use me, to get to Gehrich."

Miles rolled a shoulder. "Could be," he said placidly. "Course," he said, with a snort of a laugh that sounded grimmer than it should have. "After the rumble least night, maybe not even that."

He looked me over then, a casual glance that spoke volumes that I couldn't even begin to was another shiver of unease in my queasy stomach.

I stared down at my ruined hands, every knuckle laboriously circled by mottled blue and black bruising, the splits yawning like little mouths.

"I could still just run," I said, my voice as tight as a wound-up spring. "…Who cares. I've done it before."

He gave me a studying, sideways glance, as if he was trying to figure out exactly how he was going to relay this all to Dell.

Finally, he said mildly, "You remember Teagues?"

I went still.

"Course you do," he said. "Everybody remembers Teagues. I even remember when he joined up, a year or so back. He was locked up for some fucked-up little job he'd pulled down in Hoax. We was busting out Gasche for the millionth time, and the Boss let Teagues come along."

He suddenly became very absorbed in adjusting his cuffs, and said placidly, "He likes that kind of thing. Folk with nowhere else to go."

"Teagues joins up, and he fits in okay. Dumb, but tough, and enough of a mean streak to keep the Boss happy," he continued. "It's beside the point, really, because after a couple of months, the fucker starts having second thoughts. Sees a couple of the messier jobs, gets spooked."

(Exactly what constituted a  _messy job_ around here, I didn't want to know.)

The yellow eyetooth showed again in a grimace of a smile, "Fucker even goes to Dell about it. Tells him he's had a blast, but he wants out. And Dell  _listened._ Polite as hell, smiling the whole time. Said, ' _Aw shucks, Teagues, sorry you feel that way, we'll surely miss ya around here,'_ and coughs up his backpay without another word." He gestured with the cigarette, jabbing each word in like a burn, "He gets two weeks of free air topside before the guard nails him in Furni. Hanging's pretty much the only thing he's got going for him."

Miles sucked the last of the life out of his cigarette, then stubbed it out on the ground. "So Teagues caves. Tells 'em about our next planned hit- the where's, when's, all the details. And they let him go. Even let him keep his backpay. And the next time we try hitting one of the wagon lines from Lohan, three hundred fucking Mille Seseauan infantrymen drop right out of the fucking trees." His lip twisted.

"So he burned his bar down," I said bluntly. "Dell did. When Teagues got one."

He shot me an annoyed glance, "You're fucking right he burned his bar down. Took six months to set it up- Dell wanted to wait until Teagues got good and settled, got a good bit of business going on in Furni, and  _boom_ ," he said, bringing his hands together with a grisly finality. "He sent Gasche in first to kill every other motherfucker in there, even the old farts enjoying a beer by the fire. Then he torched the place."

_Oh god,_ I thought.  _Furni, when I broke that chair over that guy's head. And then Mullet brained some other guy. They must have thought it was-_

His fingers started tapping on his knee. "You got to understand- we lot  _half our crew_ during that little escapade," he said quickly, and a little sharply, looking me right in the eye. "And that's even with Gasche going berserk and trying to  _gnaw_ his _way_  out of there. Hell, even Dell joined in. Your cousin got quite a name for himself. Clawed his way to the front line, took out the officer in charge, looking  _annoyed as fuck_  the whole time."

I snorted. Sounded about right, yeah.

"Anyways," he said, "That's beside the point. The point is- even if you get the fuck out of dodge, and leave me short three hundred Millies, there ain't no fucking way that the guard's gonna let you slide on by."

_That's assuming that Dell lets me go in the first place,_ I thought hollowly.  _Since I'm his one chance of getting an edge on Gehrich._

_Or… worse._

I looked down, and saw that I was trembling. Little tremors ricocheting behind the skin of my hands.

_I'm a tool. Either way, I'm just a tool. And not even one that he minds losing. He'll let Gasche snap my neck anytime he wants._

I was shocked out of it when he clapped me on the back suddenly, his voice gone mirror-bright. "Aw, hell, don't let me worry you about it. You've got plenty of time to heal up and rest before anything major goes down, and we got plenty of food lying around here somewhere. This life ain't that hard, once you get used to it, and the Boss'll leave you alone so long as you're doing your job right."

His voice smoothed out a little, the burr-hard register of it mellowing out into a gruff baritone. He actually sounded like he felt sorry for me.

"You talk a lot," I said.

His mouth quirked. "Been told as much."

I stared at the ground for a while.

"So," he said, looking me straight in the eye as soon as my head jerked up. "This is it, kid. Probably ain't nobody who's going to tell you nothing flat-out like this again. You'll get to figure it out all on your own, and live by the consequences."

I squirmed under his glare, not wanting to be pinned down by his words.

It was so surreal, this moment.

Yesterday, I'd been wild-eyed and halfway down the road to starving. Then I'd pulled a couple of dumbass stunts, shot my mouth off, and ended up kicking the tar out of a handful of Deningrad's finest.

Tommorow, I might end up with Gasche's hands locked around my throat. Dell might stab me in the kidneys just to stick it to my cousin. I could go completely off the deep end and become what I was beginning to think that I was always meant to be- a mad dog, with a body count stacked up the ceilings.

But here, I don't know. Both of them seemed farther away than the Never-Setting Moon, glinting coldly and distantly malevolent over on the horizon, but still  _not here_.

Here was just the last of the cold leeching out of my bones as the weak, fluttering sunlight finally made its way into the clearing. Here was me, filthy, tired, and too queasy to be hungry, sitting with my back up against a smelly Runner with one conniving old gambler who thought he owed it to me to give me a fair chance.

I liked him.

He was untrustworthy, and didn't share his booze, and wasn't any nicer than he needed to be, but he reminded me of Keys, and that was enough. Keys back before he started going downhill, when he could barely get out of bed for his stoved-up back, and nobody 'cept me would come in and visit him.

He'd still been alive when I'd left.

Funny, how much it hurt knowing that I wouldn't be around to make lousy jokes and hold his busted-up old hand when he died.

"Nah," I said. Tried to run a hand through my hair, and barely could, for all the grease and dirt. "Thanks for the lecture though."

He grinned. Stood up, slow and easy, and dusted the Runner hair off his clothes. He gestured with one tobacco-stained hand. "So, uh, you wanna find somewhere to wash off most of that puke?"

**0.-0.-0**

I got some  _weird_ looks walking into the main camp.

Part of it could have been because I looked pretty grisly moseying along behind Miles, who walked at least ten feet in front of me the whole way. Especially when considering that I hadn't bathed all that regularly even before last night, and that the clothes I was wearing had been pretty ripe even before I'd horked all over myself.

….. Okay, I couldn't have looked  _that_ bad. Bunch of pricks.

However, the looks heading my way couldn't compare with the way my eyes bugged out at the camp itself.

I'd expected, you know, a tree fort. Something  _sneaky_. Something that  _blended into the goddamn trees a little._

What I actually saw was a fully-fledged Mille Seseauan army camp, complete with fluttering blue-and-white banners of the Divine Tree. Some of the men had even swiped a couple of the uniforms, but it didn't quite perpetuate the illusion, seeing as most of them still had their beat-up old bandit clothes underneath the shiny new cuirasses.

"What the  _fuc_ k?" I muttered, hoping Miles would turn around and explain a few things, but he barely heard me. Instead, he stalked over to one of the tents and pulled the flap open, jerking his chin at me to get inside.

The hackles on the back of my neck raised, but I went inside, not knowing if Dell himself was going to be sitting inside with a hangman's noose.

It was the armory tent.

"S'basin there, if you like," said Miles. "Rain butt's outside the tent if you need a refill. Plenty of spare clothes in one of those chests, if you don't wanna wear the ones you have now."

I didn't.

He scuffed a heel in the withered grass. "Dinner's in the main tent. Sundown, probably. If you don't want to talk to nobody 'till then, keep the flap closed." His voice grew short. "Best as well. Give 'em a chance to get used to the idea of you. Gasche is probably still prowling around, too."

"Is this…" I said slowly. "Is this an  _army base?_ Is that why you guys haven't been found so far, because they think you're an  _outpost_?"

He grinned humorlessly. "It's temporary. Came upon these suckers a week ago. Cleared the place out. It's all right- we sent along any bird dispatches if we get 'em, try to keep the game going. Won't last, though, we're heading out first thing tomorrow, once the reserves get back."

"What the fuck you guy's  _steal_?" I asked, flabbergasted. "The whole goddamn treasury?"

He shrugged. "You'll find out eventually."

…Well  _that_ sounded ominous.

His nose wrinkled, and he took a step back. I wondered if it was just because I smelled, or if he didn't want to be seen talking to me any longer than necessary. "Wash up," he said. "See you at dinner." And then he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away, letting the flap fall behind him.

I was alone again.

It smelled claustrophobically of iron and old leather in there, which made sense, seeing as there were stacks of standard issue broadswords all around me, along with barrels of arrows, neat, coiled loops of bowstrings, and several heavily-sealed boxes that could only hold some of the more heavy duty bought-magics.

Those I was actually rather curious about- the most I'd ever seen in use was the burn-outs they'd let us mess around with as kids, and I'd only ever heard stories about the more powerful ones. Dad used to say that in the hands of the right person, you could convert an entire approaching unit into a screaming bonfire, but he'd never thought much of them. I left them alone, figuring that I had enough on my plate without accidentally setting fire to the camp. I did poke through the piles of weapons a little, hoping a little wistfully that maybe they'd have a standard-issue pair of clawed armguards laying around somewhere, but no luck.

My coat was the first thing to go. It hit the opposite tent wall and flopped to the ground in a wet, crusty heap, still exuding a faint scent of bile. My shirt went too, then my boots, till all I had left was my grimy pants and my slightly whiffy chestwrap, but I left that on. God knows what I'd do if somebody walked in; even though I'd already secured the straps, it was better safe than sorry.

I hissed, prodding the slice across my ribs with careful fingers.

It wasn't deep. It certainly looked angry, but it wasn't infected yet, thanks in no small part to the brandy they'd dumped over it. My clothes had certainly reeked of it.

It was a long red smile spread across the left side of me, and it stung like a motherfucker every time I twisted my torso. I washed it first, carefully, using the edge of one of the spare wool cloaks that I'd dipped in the ewer water first, hissing at the sting of it.

I rummaged around in the supplies until I found what I was looking for- the smoky blue vials with the hardened wax caps. Those I gnawed off, then choked down half a sour squirt of Fog before smearing the rest of it on my ribs. It felt as slick and gross as goose grease, but by the time I'd dropped the bottle to the floor, the edges had started to cling together as though they'd been glued. I poked the slice once- the skin had gone numb. Good.

After that, I just emptied the ewer over my head, and got to work scrubbing.

I'd gotten gaunter. My belly'd sunk in since the last time I'd had a bath- jeez, when was it, Furni?- and my ribs stuck out like ship spars. It was embarrassing how honest-to-god filthy I was, how far I'd let things slide. It's one thing to smell, it's entirely another to have a grey ring of grime around your neck from your shirt collar rubbing against it. Or to have your hair fairly snap off at the root once you try to soap it up.

In the end, though, I got clean. Or as clean as I could get with cold water and a sliver of soap, but it was good enough.

I'd gotten  _creamed_ last night, though.

I'd won, but that was beside the point. I finally had a chance to see the full extent of the damage, and it wasn't pretty. Some of the bruises were verging on rotten-pumpkin black, my shoulders and upper back so tender that I could barely reach an arm up to scrub at them. My lip had split, and a couple of molars were feeling a little looser than usual, but that was nothing new. If I left them alone and chewed real careful, they'd set back into my jaw.

My hair, though, that was the worst. I eventually got it back to its original honey-brown color, and when it dried out, it floated around my head, crackling with dryness. I rummaged around on the table next to the ewer until I found what I was looking for, a rusty straight razor and a mirror the size of my palm.

I nearly cut my own throat with the first slice, but a good amount of hair came with it, so that was all right.

I looked different in the mirror, skinnier and tougher and wilder around the eyes than I remembered. The split in my lip didn't help with the image.

I was lousy at cutting my own hair. I couldn't get it even, so it just kept getting shorter and shorter until I had a ragged, spiky, chin-length mop that at least looked a little more respectable. I looked weirdly fragile with my hair gone- my blunt chin jutting out, with my big eyes overhead like some little orphan waif's.

I prodded my nose critically. Least it could do was loom out of my face like Gehrich's, but no, it stayed like it always was- flat and small and annoyingly cute.

I never used to cut my own hair at home. Time was, Lotta's mom would sit me down in her kitchen with a sheet around my shoulders, and go at me with her sewing shears. She was good at it, in an un-dramatic sort of way, always finishing off the ends neatly and working around my cowlick as best she could. She  _hated_  cutting Lotta's hair, since she loved how long her corkscrew curls could get, and how they all looked tumbling down her back in a huge, frizzy mane, but since Lotta always threatened to hack it off herself with a sharp rock, she relented.

My hands shook ever so slightly, so I had to put the razor down for a minute and swipe the fallen strands of hair from my chest.

I was done anyway. I used both hands to puff my hair out, then tucked it behind my ears. I had no idea how I'd made myself look ten years older and six-years-old at the same time, but I'd managed it.

Miles had been right about there being spare clothes in the chests. They were all ridiculously huge. I didn't want to think about what had been done to the men who were supposed to be wearing them, but the socks were thick, Kashuan wool that reached all the way up to my knees, so that was nice. I guess.

I didn't have as much luck finding any pants that fit- my skinny ass was swimming in anything they had lying around, so in the end I had to slide into my crunchy old bloodstained jeans. My better luck was finding a soft, woolen shirt meant to go under plate armor that wrapped around my chest and buttoned all up along the side. It came down to my knees, and I had to roll the cuffs up three times before my wrists would come out, but it was warm and clean, even if it smelled like stale mothballs and cedar.

And after all that, I didn't feel any better, any cleaner, or any less ill at ease, but at least I'd mopped up the worst of it.

But I was tired.

I'd been tired for a long time.

I hadn't exactly landed on my feet, but it wasn't, you know,  _headfirst,_  neither.

**0.-0.-0**


	10. Chapter 10

The dining tent wasn't that hard to find- especially once it got dark. The thing glowed like a firefly, the biggest tent in the entire encampment, and the one that was producing the most noise.

I'd wasted as much time as I could in the armory tent, which was easy, since nobody came to check on me even once. I didn't know if that was Miles' doing, or their own initiative. Occasionally I'd hear voices passing by the tent, but never distinctly, and they didn't stick around for long. A couple of times I thought I heard a voice that might have been Hiram Dell's and froze solid, but I could never quite tell.

In short, I'd spent the rest of the day trying to nap and being a complete chicken-shit.

I did doze a little, in the end, and that helped, but when I peeked outside for the thousandth time and saw the last of the red sunlight fading from the trees, I couldn't take it anymore.

Gasche was nowhere to be seen when I went outside- which wasn't as comforting as you might think. It's a bit like having a poisonous hornet somewhere inside your house; not being able to see it doesn't make you feel any better.

(On second thought, fuck that. At least hornets you can smash with a napkin, or you can  _leave_. Jeez, why do my metaphors always crash and burn like this?)

The light was weird, this time of evening. Like- man, what do you call it- twilight? Half-light? Oh yeah, the  _gloaming,_ where everything's all red-brushed shadows and soft edges.

And it was cold.A dry, invasive sort of cold that punched right through my wool wrap and gnawed at my bones. It was getting to the midpoint of October, so I guess I should have expected it, but fuck  _that,_ I'm from an island where winter means monsoons and typhoons and all other interesting kinds of –oons, but not  _cold_. On my last trip through the Evergreen, it hadn't been like this. Back with Mullet, on the run from what had been the first in a long line of shitstorms I'd kicked up. It'd still been high summer then, but now, every outlander story I'd ever heard about Deningradian winters was thumping 'round in my brain with really big boots.

I softened a little, thinking back.

It'd been nice, you know? Tromping around the woods with Mullet. He'd been good company. Maybe I should have stuck with him- he'd never mentioned any plans for Deningrad, maybe he'd been just as lost as I was. He'd certainly looked a hundred different kinds of lost.

But it wouldn't have led anywhere.

I was done with being aimless. I knew where that road went. Even if he'd been…. Well, nice. Too quiet, too full of all that weird, nameless hurt, and more beat up than a pair of old shoes, but he'd been nice. Never asked any questions, never even asked my name; he just let things lie as they were.

My hand, without any real thought on my end, strayed to my pockets where I still kept that funny old stone of his.

_I'm always gonna do that, I think._

_I'm always gonna find someone wounded and funny and weirdly pleasant and fuck 'em up a little. I'll do it everytime._

Not that I was guilty. Guilt's boring and time-consuming and  _deadly,_ in my current situation, and I wasn't going to surrender to it.

That's what Claires do, after all. They hurt Mullets and Keys and blonde-curly Lottas- hurt 'em dead half the time- and they never look back, not once.

Hiram Dell might not have been much in the way of  _nice,_ but at least he was a way out.

You know what?

Deningrad sucked.

It hadn't hit me at first, but now I knew that this wasn't ever going to be like home. It wasn't the awful, big trees, or the cold nights, or the crappy rules, or the bandit-infested forests, or anything really, but maybe it was. Maybe it was everything nasty and frightening that had happened to me since I'd hit land. Maybe it was being alone and hungry for a couple of weeks. Maybe it was being surrounded by danger, on my first day of the job, with no huge, hooked-nose cousin to look out for me.

Maybe it was all the goddamn bruises on my hands.

Really, maybe it was just that this was just the kind of country Deningrad was. A winter country, a tree country, the kind of country where Gehrichs go missing, and Claires fumble around like guilty sleepwalkers, and Mullets try to save the day and act decent but get ditched at the city gates every time and Hiram Dells preside over it all, laughing their fool heads off.

Maybe Tiberoa'd be better.

It's hot, at least, and there's plenty of desert to hide in. Even Serdio might be worth a shot.

I was trying  _very hard_ to disregard everything Miles had told me before. About me being trapped in this new, dangerous life.  _Me,_ trapped? Please. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's getting the fuck out of dodge in a hurry. Give me room to run, and a chance to make the break, and I'm gone, simple as that. No hang-ups, no loose ends, nothing. Not even Hiram Dell could hold me back.

At least that's what I kept telling myself.

There was a man standing guard outside of the tent. He ignored me completely, a motionless figure surrounded by a wreath of smoke, and he didn't stop me when I lifted the flap and stepped inside.

The first thing that hit me was how  _warm_ it was. They had a brazier going in every corner, and a huge stove in the back that was coughing up steam and smoke and absolutely _gorgeous_ smells, like onions and garlic and hot grease and all sorts of other lovely things.

The tent was packed. Thirty, forty men, it must have been, and each one louder than the last, so that the air fairly rippled with noise. Their boss was nowhere in sight.

_This is so_ stupid, I thought.  _Every battalion in the Mille Seseauan military combing these woods right now, and they're sitting smack dab in the middle of it, having a party._

I wavered by the entrance, dizzy from the noise and smells. Nobody seemed to notice me- but then they did, sort of. It was barely recognizable, but the crowd seemed to shift a little, like nobody wanted their back towards me. I scanned the crowd, and couldn't catch sight of a single familiar face- not Miles, not any of the men from the night before, not Dell, anyone. There was a fluttering in my chest, that familiar current of fear running in my veins that always came when I was on my own in a group of strangers. I'd never been prepared for this sort of thing as a kid- everybody knew  _everybody_ at home, and even if you weren't in your own clan, there was always somebody there with a face you knew. There wasn't this gut-wrenching sense of displacement, where you couldn't do anything because you didn't know the  _politics_ of it.

I was still caught up with it when a hand clapped down on my shoulder and I was suddenly once more engulfed by the smell of tobacco smoke and wet wool. "Like a bad penny," said Miles in his gravel-bed voice, coming in just behind my right ear. "Got yourself swabbed up, I see."

Feeling that grateful ought to be outlawed.

I shoved down the terror of  _Oh god, it might be Dell, what the fuck am I gonna do_ as far down into my toes as I could, and squared my shoulders. "Gotta stand out somehow," I said, turning around to face him.

"Shit, kid, you wanna  _stand out_ , you came to the wrong fuckin' place," he rumbled direly. "We're  _all_ the same here. Now go on, get yourself some food, I'll save you a seat."

"But how do I-" I started, but he was ignoring me again, pushing on ahead into the tumult like he was born there. There was a card game going on in the center, wreathed in a thick, billowing haze of smoke from half a dozen bandits smoking like chimneys, all of them with ferocious looks of concentration on their faces.

The cookstove was in the back, tended by a huge, bare-armed native Tiberoan, his dark brown skin shining with sweat and his hair oiled back into a braid that reached his waist. He cooked furiously, jabbing at one frying pan one minute before lunging over and hauling a two-handled pot off the stove before it went up in flames. There was a line of men queued up for food- they'd rap on the warming oven as they came up to it, and the cook would swear in some blistering, incomprehensible desert tongue before plopping down a tin plate. I didn't get a chance to see what it was until it was my turn, but then I walked up all nervous and stiff-legged and rapped on the stove and got a plate of my own.

It was rice and peppers, with long, glistening strips of meat as dark as liver thrown in for good measure. It  _sweated_ garlic, and as soon as I got a chance to sit down at a packed table a foot or so away from the card game and shovel it into my mouth, I let my eyes drift closed.  _Holy fuck._

It was spicy enough to bring tears to my eyes, but I'd loved that kind of thing since I was three years old. Mille Seseauan food tended to run towards the starchy and soft variety, and I hadn't realized how much I missed the throat-punching burn of peppers until it was roaring in my mouth again. It went beautifully with the meat, which was sort of chickeny and sweet and smoky and hang on-

"Seems somebody got the jewel-eye away from Gasche before he had time to go through his whole routine," said Miles, sliding into a seat next to mine, with a cigarette clenched between his teeth, a long-necked bottle of some amber liquor in one hand. "Pity about the feathers, though. They'd have fetched a mint."

The fact that I was eating the murderous peacock from this morning should have made me want to quit eating  _but it totally didn't oh my god._

"Yeah, well, thank him for me." I said around my next mouthful.

He snickered, "You can thank him yourself, he's over there."

While I choked on a wad of cilantro, he poured himself a drink and nodded blandly towards one of the corners I hadn't scanned on my way in. Sure enough, there was Gasche, looming like a grizzly bear in a seat two sizes too small for him. He caught me looking, his head jerking to face mine, and then his face screwed up in some indescribable disgust. My eyes flinched away, and I looked back to my meal.

Miles was muttering quietly to someone behind his shoulder, then he reached up and coin exchanged hands.

I elbowed him, and hissed, "What the fuck  _is he_?"

His eyebrow raised. "You're feeling better," he remarked flatly.

I felt a touch on my shoulder, like someone was jostling me to get by. I ignored it, and let them squeeze on through. "I had a nap. Listen- nobody's that huge, or that friggin'  _weird_."

He shrugged. "Half-giganto, I suspect. The halfbreeds are all a little nutty- they can't hardly talk right in the first place, even the purebred." His eyes skated up blandly to over my shoulder, where someone else was trying to wind their way through the maze of tables and men to the cookstove behind me. They were none too polite about either. Annoyed, I leaned across the table to let them pass.

"Ignore him," he said. "Here, meet some people instead." He flapped a hand at some of the geezers sitting across from me, solidly eating their food with a daunting lack of interest. "Boones, Langley- they're from down in Hoax, they're good people. You stick with them, and they'll straighten you out eventually."

"What's your sign?" asked one of them bluntly, a man with slanted, Fuenan eyes and cheekbones sharp enough to draw blood.

"Dark," said (Boones?) quickly, belying the fact that he looked about as slow as a vat of molasses, and twice as big. "Twenty on dark."

"Nah, water," said Langley, a skinny, weather-beaten mutt of a man with a small, nervous smile and shackle scars on his wrists. "Thirty on water."

"So you're  _all_ like this," I said to Miles flatly, trying to reach for his liquor, and failing as he quickly moved it out of reach, then slugged half of it back in one go.

"More or less," he murmured coolly.

"Wait," I said, wincing as yet  _another_ person pushed by me, jabbing me in the kidneys this time. "My birth sign? Who the hell cares?"

"Spill it," said the Fuenan again, sucking on a bird bone.

"Thunder," I said, puzzledly. Hell, it was the one thing I had in common with Dad- we could both smell a lightning storm from miles away, and could shock the hell out of ourselves just from walking across carpet.

There was a mass groan from the entire table, save for a couple of scattered high fives, and I realized with blurry recognition that these were a bunch of  _dorks_.

It got better from then on. I relaxed, or as much as I was able to, and nobody thought twice about handing me a glass when somebody plunked down a bottle of Kashuan vodka in the middle of the table. I almost said no thanks and tried to carry on with the first big meal I'd had in weeks, but then Miles' elbow thumped savagely into my side without so much as an expression crossing his face, so I changed my mind. It burned going down, and it burned in my belly, but then everybody roared and somebody clapped me on the back and finally let me eat. The hot, oily rice absorbed the overwhelming spice beautifully, and by the time I'd gone back for my second plate, they'd already started passing out neat, tight little rolls of that awful stuff Keys used to buy from the mainland on the sly, and were lighting up right and left.

My head swimming within seconds, I put off sucking down another plateful of food, and actually started talking to some of them.

Most were from Deningrad, really, either rejects from some road-work crew, or run-of-the-mill convicts. There were quite a few Tiberoans and fair-haired Serdians mixed into the bunch as well, with one or two turban-headed Lohanians grimly playing cards in the back. It was a regular group of mutts, led by the king of the junkyard dogs himself.

This was a bigger group than I'd seen last night. From what I could pick up, the crowd of twenty or so men last night had been split off from the main group, providing some sort of distraction while the second half pulled off some operation that nobody would give any specifics of. But whatever it was, they were still coming down off the  _high_ of it.

From what I could gather, there hadn't even been any losses, even though the group from last night had been more or less expecting to go down fighting, from what I gathered. But they hadn't, so they were drinking more, smoking more, and talking more, and shooting me these weird, calculating looks that made me jumpier than hell.

And the weird thing was, nobody was flirting with me.

Nobody seemed to think twice about the fact that I seemed to be the only chick in a tent full of pent-up, criminal impulses. It was  _weird,_ especially when you considered the fact that the average Deningrad male seemed to think that women were built for two things- to have kids, and to have the decency to sit back and be flirted with.

Not that I was missing it or anything.

… Shut up.

Another weird thing was, I still didn't have any earthly idea as to what had actually been stolen last night. They were talking about it sure, talking about the long, tense  _ordeal_ of it, but no specifics. It was puzzling and annoying and a little terrifying.

The old duffers Miles had introduced me to were more than happy to talk. They were careful not to ask me anything too specific- presumably they'd been warned beforehand, but they were surprisingly good company.

However, a little ways into the evening, it struck me that their conversation seemed a little forced

"So!" said Langley brightly, "A fist fighter, huh?"

"You're  _short_ ," said Boones.

They looked at me expectantly.

"Um," I said.

I'd finally hit my limit on dinner, and was by then a bloated, sweating ball of well-fed Claire. They'd run out of grub twice before I'd found my limit, and each time, the Tiberoan chef swore and hauled out a sack of rice and started frying the whole mess up all over again.

I was also a little bit, um,  _wobbly_. Not drunk, per se, but not in peak condition, lemme put it that way.

"Some of the lads are into it," said Boones. "Gehrich got them all doing pushups and whaling on each other at dawn every morning. They picked it up fast."

Hastily, he added, "Nothing fancy, mind you. Nothing the likes of which you pulled last night. Basics."

He said it too fast.

Before I had time to feel too uneasy, Langley piped up. "They wanted me to let you know that they'd appreciate anything you could show them. Specially Bellamy there."

I looked over to where he nodded. Bellamy was sitting down at the end of the table, a gangly kid little older than me, with sandy brown hair and a network of pimples, who blushed down to his roots and waved when he saw me.

_Wait a minute._

"Wait a minute," I said, and wished that my brain didn't fly apart into a thousand, bemused splinters every time I was surprised. "Gehrich's been teaching them  _moves?"_

Boones blinked. Bellamy, down by the end, looked a little hurt.

"Well, yeah," said Langley. "Anything helps, right?"

"He showed me how to break fence rails with my face!" said Bellamy brightly.

… Why is that the first thing anybodywants to learn?

Forget that- this was  _bad._

Rouge Style stays on the Rouge Isles, that's the first rule. You can go to the mainland, sure, and you can come back. You can even bring a mainlander back with you, have some blonde, blue-eyed kids. But we don't trust the people who weren't born on our sands, and we sure as hell don't teach them our Art.

Growing up, I'd always heard about the sheer marvel it had been that Dad had married a halfblood, and Lotta had gotten ganged up on and the shit beaten out of her before I'd blundered to her rescue.  _We didn't trust the continent._

And even if they'd fed me, patched me up, and were being as hospitable as I was likely to ever see, I wouldn't cave in.

I opened my mouth, and was about to deliver something stirring and highly affronted along the lines of  _no, never, go to hell, it's a sacred art, goddamnit, even if my Dad's an asshole,_ when-

I should have heard the change in the room. Should have heard the guarded  _quiet_ of it, even if everyone was making nearly as much noise as before. I should have heard them snap to attention and try to look a little less harmless.

A warm, bony hand settled down on the back of my neck like a band of iron as a bright, twangy voice said, "Well  _shee-it_ , kitten, seems you're bound and determined to give us a show every night. Gonna have to start selling tickets and peanuts."

_Fuck._

Hiram Dell gave my neck an extra, punishing squeeze before he let go and stood tall and easy at the head of the table.

He didn't look any different from last night- still just as skinny, just as ratty, and still as much of a skew-eyed pirate. He looked just as fresh and bright-eyed as last night, his unwashed hair tied back loosely with some hank of flashy ribbon.

"What the hell," he said, smacking his hands together. "I'll allow it. Get the kid his boxing gloves, and clear the tables." He grinned like a happy shark. "I'll handle the bets."

Bellamy was squirming like a goddamn puppy, he looked so pleased.

Me, I felt vaguely like I wanted to throw up again.

It was unbelievable how fast everyone in the tent could move once somebody started giving orders. In a flash, the dining tables were hauled out to the edges to clear a space, leaving me grasping feebly for the first cup of tea I'd seen in  _weeks,_ and it had had  _sugar_ , and I hadn't even  _tasted_ it yet.

My gaze lurched around the room, looking for a voice of reason anywhere I could find it, but Miles was nowhere to be seen. There was only Gasche, sprawled in a chair somewhere near the front of the crush, grinning like it was seven birthdays rolled in one.

Boones and Langley were watching with a great deal of curiosity, and even the closemouthed Fuenan's eyes were glittering with interest.

"Please don't go easy on me, miss!" chirped Bellamy. He was standing in the center of the makeshift fighting arena, and standing tall, he was a long, lanky youth who had to be at least three heads taller than me. He was built like a leggy Labrador puppy, and was about as dopily good-natured. He smiled bashfully at me. "Mr. Gehrich had been teaching me loads. Really."

I got to my feet finally, and it was then that I noticed that he was occupied with strapping a pair of shiny, leather armguards on, the likes of which I hadn't seen since the day I'd left home. They gleamedwith newness, and when he sheepishly held his hands up in a basic fighting form, I saw the glint of cold metal on each leather-wrapped knuckle.

Studs.

Not claws, not like my father's, but iron-shod nonetheless.  _Jawbreakers._

"Are you  _insane?"_ I hissed at Hiram Dell, whirling on my feet. He had the grace to pretend to look slightly hurt. "How come he gets to be armed, and I don't?"

"He, um," said Bellamy, "He lets me train with these most times." He beamed. "They're new!"

He seemed altogether too delighted about this entire thing. Was that how I was supposed to feel, back in the day, when I was learning my first blocks and punches?

Hiram Dell smiled sweetly, and it didn't suit him. "Didn't bother you none last  _night_ , sweetheart."

Bellamy stilled somewhat, and began to look a bit nervous. He was young, and cute, and too earnest and polite to be a bandit. It was easy to see how  _I'd_ wound up as one- I was a lying, backstabbing rat, but not  _him._

"I can…. take 'em  _off_ , miss," he said slowly, even though it was plain to see how proud he was of all those studs and gleaming leather on his fists.

I felt like an enormous asshole just then.

"No," said Hiram Dell, and all of a sudden, his accent got less thick, less Serdian 'good ol' boy'. "Keep them on." Then he grinned, and it all came galloping back. "Show her what  _Sensei Gehrich_ got hisself a name doin'."

Oblivious, Bellamy beamed.

I stood, sweating, in the middle of that cleared-out space, and nearly jumped out of my skin when Dell's hand clamped down on my shoulder once more, teasingly gentle. He leaned in, and drawled in my ear, "I hear my lieutenant thought he'd give you a leg up 'round here. Let you know how things stand."

I must've blanched, because he laughed.

He drew in closer, "I'll let you know right here and now, kitten.  _How things stand._ You butch up.  _Real_ quick. Ain't gonna be no good buddy Miles or sweet old grandpappy cutthroats or cousin  _Gehrich_  to straighten you out. It's just  _you,_ and  _me,_ and…"

I knew where he was looking, even without facing him. That yellow monster over on the sidelines, gone all red and purple from seeing Dell bent all over me like that. The carnivore smirk was gone from his ruined face. Fucker was  _jealous._

"So you want me to kill him?" I ground out. "An encore for last night?"

"Aw, hell no, kitten," he drawled. There was a thoughtful beat before he added, "Not unless you  _wanna,_ shit, I ain't one to curb mankind's dangerous impulses, give it your best shot if you feel up to it."

"I  _don't,"_ I said.

He squeezed tighter. "I just wanna ease you into things, is all. Get you used to beatin' the shit out of puppydogs like Bellamy there."

"Why?"

It sounded so bare when I said it.

He snickered. "'Cuz you're  _good_ at it, kitten."

He let go, slapped me on the back, and swaggered back to the sidelines. "I'm handling bets!" he shouted, and a highly appreciative roar went up from the tent.

I smiled weakly at Bellamy, which must have looked frightful because then he started to look a little sick.

I took my place opposite in the ring, and began to actually think about what I was supposed to be doing.

The studs were something to worry about, I thought more seriously. They'd hurt to block, and they'd doubly hurt if they actually connected. At least they weren't the gutters I was used to- studs could crush your skull, granted, but claws drew actual blood. Aim for the belly, the armpit, or just punch somebody in the face like normal, and they'd go down  _bloody._

_Not a pretty way to die,_ said my father's voice.  _That's all we can offer, in the end. Ugly ways to die._

It was like my heart hiccupped, then settled down, and the hot pressure behind my eyes increased.

I ignored it, and settled into my stance.

It took a while for it to sink in.

….  _FUCK._

A chill came over me as I tried to take position to mirror Bellamy over on the other side of the ring, and  _couldn't._  Not only was I still stiff as hell, but I'd tried to cock my hands into fists and quickly realized that my hands were still big, oozing blocks of  _bruise_. Simply curling my fingers up made the ache clang up my arm like a spoon hitting a frying pan.

And I was drunk. Not much, not as bad as I've ever been, and the room definitely wasn't spinning round like a Runner on a bender, but I wasn't all together right on my feet and I was _so fucking stupid_ for taking all those goddamn drinks out of sheer neighborliness. I hurt, and I was tired, and I'd had too much to drink, and those cold metal studs on Bellamy's hands wouldn't know the difference.

I was beginning to think I'd mistaken the nature of the test.

Hiram Dell caught my eye again, handling the bets in the corner of the tent. He gave me a yellow-toothed smirk and winked his skew eye.

When I turned again, Bellamy had settled into an awkward facsimile of the Rouge stance, looking determined and a little seasick.

Sometime when I'd hadn't been looking, Miles had wandered into the center of the ring, looking hang-dog and unhappy and slightly disgusted with the entire situation. "Right," he said. "I'll toss a coin. When it hits the floor, y'all have at it. Don't embarrass yourselves."

"I just want to say," I said slowly, "That this is the worst goddamn party of my entire goddamn life."

"I am so, so sorry, miss," said Bellamy miserably.

"Hey Bell!" called out Dell from the back. "Kick her ass, and I'll send your ma over one of those clothes chests we nabbed last month!"

The kid's face brightened up so fast it was sick.

"All right," shrugged Miles. "Here goes."

And he tossed the coin.

"Wait a minute-" I said hastily, the coin glittering in the yellow, flickering lamplight of the tent, but then it smacked down in the dust and Bellamy was on me.

He was  _fast_. His form wasn't anywhere near perfect- Gehrich probably hadn't had time to nail it into him, but he had the gist of it down, and that was enough.

He nearly had me, right from the start, but I somehow got myself moving and whipped my head out of range before his fist could cannonball into it. I blocked, then blocked and blocked and  _blocked,_ my forearms screaming where they connected with the stiffened leather of his arm guards.

He had a long fucking reach in those puppy-soft arms, that's what was throwing me. A long reach, and a good foot and a half on me, and in my condition, that was enough to keep me on my toes. At any other time I would have been impressed that a gangly heap of nothing like him could learn so fast, but not then.  _Not then._

I hadn't been prepared for this, and I wasn't in any kind of right shape, and it was showing. My blocks were ragged and too slow, and the rotten-black bruise high on my hip made it so I couldn't really bring myself to haul that leg up for the higher kicks.  _He could_ , though, and he kicked like a fuckin' mule.

If I'd thought the tent was loud before, I'd been wrong. Everything decent, everything normal about the crowded cook tent I'd blundered into was gone, and they were reduced to a sea of shouting animals. They lived for this kind of thing, Dell lived for this kind of thing. Not glory, not conquest, but  _spectacle._

I wasn't moving right. I wasn't fast enough. He clipped me more than once, enthusiastic and oblivious and somehow, it hurt worse than the billy clubs last night. Even if he was rough around the edges, Bellamy knew how to put his weight behind his arm. With my reflexes fuzzy, I couldn't draw on that hot, black urgency that I'd come to rely on in the past- something was howling inside my temples, but it wasn't traveling down into my fists. My legs hurt, my ribs hurt, and my fists felt like they'd burst like overripe plums if I so much as landed a punch.

He was pressing me, pressing me right to the howling edge of the crowd, and black gods help me, I was giving ground like it was going out of style. Being that close to the sidelines scared me, badly, and shook my focus right out the fucking window.

(Seriously? My first night here and I'm suddenly a  _show fighter?_ I mean, I knew that this job was going to be kind of nuts but Gehrich was going to take me out to  _one hell of a dinner_ to make up for this, that's all I'm saying.)

And then I fucked up.

He struck, I blocked, and made a clumsy jab of my own, which he slid right up and through like he'd been born on the sands of the Rouge Isles and had learned how to move from the War God himself, and landed a punch right in the center of my face.

My nose broke.

It. Everything just.

Stopped.

There's really no way to describe a fistful of metal studs colliding with your face- there's really no way of  _thinking_ around it. And the sound it made, the broken-joint crunch of it.

Bellamy froze as a roar went up from the tent. but I stumbled back, clutching my face. I was  _swallowing_ blood, which was gushing straight down the back of my throat like a geyser.

Bellamy looked horrified, and I remembered for all that he was fast and kind of  _really good_ at this, he hadn't figured himself to be anywhere near my level, and hadn't imagined that he'd ever land a blow.

It was like looking into a fucking mirror.

And I was  _so angry_ then, and not because my nose was broke and I wasn't going to be anything approaching pretty ever again, but because he was  _too fucking young_ to be messing around with stuff like this and because he wasn't ready and he hadn't seen it coming and nobody deserves to feel like that and he was  _me_ and I was, I was-

The hot, black spot behind my right temple clicked, reoriented itself around the pain, then spread.

The tent, with all its overwhelming noise and heat, and Gasche sitting near the front, leaning forward with this awful  _waiting_ look on his face, and Miles looking glum and unsurprised and Dell looking tickled ten shades of pink, didn't mean shit anymore.

And suddenly- everything made sense.

I wasn't the kind of person who felt  _bad_ about this anymore. I wasn't the kind of person who threw up in the bushes after every fight, or whose brain locked down in piss-pants terror every time they had to get their hands dirty.

I wasn't afraid.

I wasn't a good person.

I was a bandit.

It was the weirdest feeling, of something within my head rubbing its hands together and  _grinning._

"Um," said Bellamy frozenly, still staring in disbelief at the mashed-in carnage of my face.

I spat a rope of something long, stringy, and shockingly red, then dove for him.

The broken nose helped, and so did the anger. The pain helped me focus, and so did all that fury, that pent-up, helpless need to  _punish._ The stiffness didn't matter, my beat-up hands didn't matter, and neither did the pintsof blood washing steadily down my throat.

I took advantage of his uncertainty, and my foot shot up, catching him somewhere below the ear. He rocked back, shocked, but I'll give him credit, he was back on the offensive in a heartbeat. It was almost like he was relieved.

He was still fast, but in that black whirlwind I was in, I could see through it now. He was fast, and direct, but so bland and obvious and  _safe_ in his moves. Gehrich had taught him form, and he'd taught him power, and he was all right in that, I suppose, but it wasn't enough. He was straight, and honest, and true, and he wasn't cut out to be a bandit and wasn't seventeen yet and I doubt he'd ever shaved and he wasn't  _cruel_ , or  _devious_ , or  _me._

If there's one thing I'm good at, it's being devious.

My shirtfront was beginning to look like a butcher's chop bench and it was hard getting enough air through my mouth, but I felt fucking fantastic. Bellamy paused, poised, and for a second there his form was  _perfect_ , just  _perfect,_ and I was so proud of Gehrich for showing him how to look like that, but he went from one perfect, safe form to one perfect, safe move and I saw straight through it in two fucking seconds, and I took my chance. It was one of those fast, awful,  _mean_ moves that Dad had taught me, the one with one of those ridiculous names of his- oh yeah,  _Hex Hammer._

I hit him. I hit him, with gulls and hornets and killer typhoons howling in my head, and he flew back and landed in a cluster of tables like he'd been kicked by a rampaging Runner.

And the tent went  _quiet._

I stood, shivering, a moment more, still caught up in the drunk, holy fury that always fueled my fighting, had ever since I first learned the prayers.

I swayed.

Shook.

Scrambled over to where Bellamy had landed.

For a moment there, I was almost shocked back into being frightened. But, for all that he'd broken one of the benches when he landed, he seemed okay. Groggy, and kind of sore from being pile-drived to within an inch of his life, but okay.

When he saw me, his eyes went owl-wide, and I felt awful, but not as awful as when he swallowed and said in one long, terrified string- "Oh jeez miss I'm sorry please don't hurt me you remind me of my sister."

…Soa's  _balls._

It broke my killer trance. I dunno what I would have done if he hadn't said something so ridiculous- killed him, hauled him up and cracked him down again, who knows. But I didn't. I stood, breathing hard, my nose feeling tight and awful and not even remotely nose-like (jeez, did I crack a cheekbone? I'm not even twenty years old yet, and already I'm gonna have the mashed-in nose and flattened cheeks of some old geezer.  _Lame._ ).

I sighed, and stepped back, and immediately bounced off what felt like a walking coat-rack.

It was Dell- he'd snuck up on me again while I was still coming down off the fight, but before I could react, he'd grabbed my wrist and hauled it above both our heads.

"Let's hear it for  _Claire, the meanest, toughest piece of ass in the Evergreen!"_ he yelled, and the tent exploded.

**0.-0.-0**

It all got kind of fuzzy after that.

Somebody got me sitting down again, and somebody else offered me a glass of Fog and brandy as big as my head. I nearly refused- tried to anyway, but they wouldn't leave me alone until I knocked the whole thing back. It tasted like fire and green leaves and a bit like  _ass_ and a lot like home, but as soon as I drank, they tipped me back and  _crunched_ my nose back into place.

Somehow, the fuss I kicked up over that was dealt with without any casualties, and when my head cleared a little bit from the white-hot awfulness of it all, Miles was tugging me back into my chair and saying wearily, "Calm down, kid, it's happened to the best of us, you've just knocked your conk out of place, just calm down and have a goddamn drink."

So that happened.

The tent was  _crazy busy_ for a while there, what with people crowding around me, and crowding around Bellamy, and crowding around Dell trying to get their winnings from the nightlyimpromptu cage match, but eventually it slowed down. By the time that happened, I'd had more Fog down my throat, across my face, and dribbled up my lopsided nostrils than I'd ever had before, but eventually, Miles called it good enough and told me not to bump it on anything.

Yeah. Thanks.  _Tried that_.

I'd only ever had slurps of Fog before, or hastily smeared it on something that I wanted fixed in a hurry. Drinking it straight out, much less trying to gracelessly snort it straight out of the bottle, was one of the worst ideas I'd ever had. Ugh. Just…  _ugh._

I begged a chance to go and sleep it off, and finally found a way out without anyone giving me a hard time. Outside, it was cold as  _ass_ , just  _seriously, unpleasantly cold_ , and I stumbled my way back to the armory tent. I hurt, and I was a little bit  _even more_ drunk, even though I'd sworn it off after getting press-ganged into a show fight.

But- there's one thing you should know about me, and that's if there's one thing about me that's constant, it's that I can never swear off doing something stupid for terribly long. I'm always going to do it, even if I promise I won't.

I made a note of the fact that apparently I was a bit of a maudlin drunk as I approached the smallish tent I'd spent all day in. It was so late that even the littlest moons had gone to bed, leaving only the huge, unmoving green one hanging pregnant in the sky.

I've never liked the Moon That Never Sets.

Call me crazy, but it's meanlooking. I mean, yeah, they say it's what we won from the Dragon Campaign from all of those stupid Winglies, and that's nice, I guess. But seriously? I like the little moons more. They  _move,_ they don't just hang there day in and day out, sending out bad juju. Plus, we were coming up on the hundred and eighth year since the last time the Moon turned red, and if you've read any history book, you'll know that nothing good's ever come of that. Villages have burned- heck, entire cities have disappeared in a single night. The books always blamed it on all of that ancient Moon Child and Black Monster bullshit, but I never bought it. Just seeing the Moon makes me uneasy- imagine it glowing  _red,_ like some big, bloodshot eye glaring down at you. It'd be enough to drive anybody crazy.

I'd already reached for the tie that held the flap closed when I finally registered the narrow, dangerous figure standing by the entrance.

"Catch," said Hiram Dell, and chucked something at me.

Last night, I'd been sharp and hard and immortal, and had swatted arrows out of the air.

This time, I was tired and sore and kind of drunk, and the bundle he threw hit me painfully mid-chest. It smelled like an ironworks.

"These are…" I said slowly once I got a handle on it, unwrapping it slowly from the half-rotted rag they were wrapped in. "… Bellamy's?"

"Nah," he said. "Gehrich's."

He continued casually as I wonderingly turned them over in my hands, his voice winding a hemp-line rope around my ankles. "Your cousin's. Must've brought 'em over with him. Had 'em when he joined up. Cobbled himself up some new ones eventually, but I kept these."

They were ugly, but they were Rouge Islands, and something rang in my chest like a death knell when I laid eyes on them.

Bellamy's were on  _training wheels_ compared to these.

They were layered over with ass-ugly pig iron, the stuff we picked off of dead pirates, or what washed onto the reef after a typhoon. I wondered if I put my nose to it, if it'd smell like salt sand and magnolia groves and home.

They didn't, really.

The leather was stiff, but the padding underneath was still in decent condition. I noted coolly that a couple of straps could do with replacing, but the buckles were all right, and had enough notches to fit my skinny arms. The iron plates continued all the way up the forearm, fit to block a hand, a foot, or even a sword. They overlapped, one right after the other, all leading up the back the hand to the base of the knuckles, each one tipped in a blunt, wicked claw.

They can rip jagged holes in plate mail. They can shatter ribs- gut you in two seconds. Shit, you can even use 'em to climb  _trees._

I must have had the weirdest look on my face, because he gave a sly grin and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Like 'em?"

"Well,  _yeah,_ " I said, moving the overlapping plates back and forth, testing their flexibility. "But…" I continued slowly, "What do you want for them?"

His grin cranked up even wider. "You catch on fast," he demurred. "But nah. Y'allready paid."

He fished something out of his pocket then, quicker than I could quite catch. He unfolded his hand and let me see it, though, and when I finally caught a glimpse, I hit a couple of new octaves.

" _Hey!"_

It was Mullet's red rock, the one that looked like a cheap, ruby knockoff that had somehow found its way into my greasy little fingers. I had no idea when Dell had nabbed it- not that he hadn't had a  _cornucopia_ of opportunities.

He tossed it into the air, then caught it. "Any idea what it is?" he asked mildly. "Looks like some kind of charm."

"Nope," I said, clutching the armguards to my chest like a shield, my voice flat. "Found it in the city. Couldn't sell it, so I kept it."

… Look, it was  _mostly_ true.

He shrugged. "They never work right for me anyways. Wasn't born under no kind of sign. And get that look off your face," he snapped wearily. "You're getting your share of last night's profits same as everybody else."

I gave up. I definitely didn't know what to do with it, I couldn't sell it, and it wasn't like I could fight him for it.

He saw me give up, and by his face, I saw that he thought it was funny.

Maybe having my face smashed in and my liver pickled made me braver. Anyway, I said it.

"What did you guys  _take_ last night?"

He stopped.

He quit taunting me with the red stone, and it vanished into his clothing as quickly as it had come. And then, he looked unbelievably smug. It struck me, that for a terrifying,  _terrifying_ person, he loved attention more than anything else you could name.

He ran a hand through his ratty hair. "Taxes," he purred casually.

My eyes bulged.

He shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets. "One of the caravans taking coin collected from Furni this year stopped at the Trade Bureau last night, to get the proper documents." He smiled. "And we got it."

"That's impossible," I said, stuttering almost to a stop. "That's…  _thousands._ The entire country would revolt, they'd be tied up for  _weeks,_ they'd burn the entire fucking forest down just to get your head on a  _stick!"_

He flapped a skinny, nail-bitten hand impatiently, "Fine, fine," he said _._ "Not  _every_ drop, just one hell of a bucketload, you get me?"

He folded his hands behind his head, stretching like a bow and grinning like a loon. "We sure fucked 'em sideways, though. They'll never live it down."

He seemed downright chipper about it, to be honest.

"So you were planning on burning down Teagues' bar anyway," I said, the name of the old barman going all ashes in my mouth. "To pull the majority of the guard over to the Tannery district."

He smirked, "Spot on, kitten. We  _was_ planning for quite the battle royale there for a while. Brought some of my best bruisers- 'cept your cousin," giving me a nod that looked like he thought was awfully gracious, all things considered, "but then you showed up."

He smiled again, all knives and crooked teeth, but a smile like butter that had been left in the sun too long. Soft and sweet and slightly rancid. It reminded me awfully of what Miles had said earlier in the day-  _then in you pop, cuter'n a button and twice as bright, and bingo, problem solved._

And then, weirdly, I remembered what Mullet had said, back when we'd still been romping through the woods, ducking the guard and me bitching at him like it was  _his_ fault that he had a big old cosmic  _Kick Me_ sign taped to the back of his head.  _They would've knocked me around and taken my money, but that'd been it. End of story._

But while Miles had sounded dimly impressed, and Mullet had seemed resigned to my tendency to blunder into absolutely  _everything_ , only Hiram Dell seemed actually pleased by it.

I shifted the armguards around in my grasp, holding them closer. I opened my mouth to scrounge up a decent comeback, when-

"Look," he said, and he didn't even sound like he was teasing this time. It was weird. His accent softened, even, so he sounded like less of a clod-kicking Serdian.

"I get that you and your cousin don't want to let me in on where y'all come from," he said, almost gently. "But I gotta know- how does a two-bit short-stack like you who's never even knocked over a Mom'n Pop feed store end up  _here?"_

I didn't like thinking that he had a point.

" _Short stack?"_ I said, my voice sawing indignantly over the word.

He smirked.

My shoulders hunched up, like they always do when I'm defensive. The haranguing I'd gotten over the years about bad posture and bad form had never cured it. "Dunno," I said, trying not to sound like a surly ten-year-old. "Wasn't anything special about it. How does anybody wind up here?"

His wide, thin lips twisted, his hair a dingy, strawberry-blonde curtain around his face. "Cut that shit out, Claire."

It was the first time he'd used my name, and he sounded like my Dad.

He hissed a long  _tchaa_ through his teeth, then slapped up the charm again.

He shrugged. "Can't rightly say," he drawled, the accent coming back full force _._ "Bellamy, we picked him up in Neet after he pulled some dumb shit with the local police. Miles, he's ex-military, used to be one of the bright and beautiful before he fucked his life up proper. And Gasche, well," a smile licked across his face, " _That's_ a story, remind me to trot that one out sometime."

"And my cousin?" I said, despite myself.

His eyebrow climbed upwards at that, but he went along with it. "Same way you did, or near 'bouts. Crashed a party we was having over in the capital, aiming to start something."

(… Okay, all of this is somewhat less embarrassing knowing that me and Gehrich had pretty much the same instincts.  _We're both dumbasses.)_

"You hooked him into fighting for you," I said. "Same as me."

Hiram Dell barked a laugh, "Shit, he was about to kick  _my_ ass if Gasche hadn't stepped in. They ain't got along since."

He cocked his head at me and drawled, "And don't act like you got suckered into it, kitten, all you've done since I've  _met_  you is try to scuff up a fight. I only  _aimed_ you."

It stung, then hit me cold all of a sudden. I recovered, clutching the armguards like they were life savers.

"You don't…" I said slowly. Swallowed. Tried again. "You don't like him, My cousin."

Dell stood and regarded me.

"Miles  _has_  been busy," he said.

I tried not to squirm, like a butterfly pinned to a card. He saw me trying, and grinning, said, "Honey, if you only knew what I got riding on Gehrich. Yeah, he's a mouthy piece of shit, but the boy's making a name for himself. And he's useful."

He grimaced, and scratched his neck. "But he's weak."

_He was weak,_ echoed my father in my head.  _He had no place with us._

"No," I said, and my face felt all tight and my nose hurt and my hands hurt and everything was  _swaying._ "He's smarter than me. He's bigger, too. He'd never let things get out of hand, he'd-"

"He ain't  _you,_ kitten," he said.

That's what threw me, really. That's what scared the shit out of me. That I was somehow  _more_ than my big, dumb cousin, who'd been more than I'd ever thought I could be. I _wasn't._ I swear to Soa I wasn't.

"I seenyou," he continued, ignoring my increasing pallor. "In action and out. Now, I ain't never laid eyes on you 'fore last night, but it don't make a difference. You're a natural, kid."

Dell took his hands out of his pockets, and his voice stopped sounding like he was making fun of me, or about to slam a knife halfway up my windpipe. "You're born to hurt things," he said, all drawly-gentle. "You get into it, like…." He trailed off. "There's nothing. No you, no enemy, just this huge, whirlwind ball of wantin' to  _hurt_ somebody."

He grinned at me, "You're good, sweet. Real damn good. And you're something I can use."

I must have looked kind of  _grey_ by that point, because then he flapped a hand in the air and turned to shuffle off towards the tents. "Leave it 'till morning, kiddo. Maybe it'll all start making sense for you then."

"And hey," he called out, turning slightly and bouncing on one leg like he was mid-way through a dance that I  _sure as hell_  didn't know the steps to, "Watch yourself around my boy, Gasche."

His face split, gleaming with teeth. "Says he don't like you."

I nodded, too tired, and too nervous to trust myself to say the right thing.

And then he was gone.

**0.-0.-0**

Sleep didn't come easy.

I wrapped myself up in the warmest pile of woolens I could, trying to steal a little heat away from the Evergreen night. My nose hurt, but dimly, as though it was throbbing from far away, and so did the rest of my bruises and scrapes.

I couldn't tell you what it was that made me move out at the ass-end of midnight- instinct, maybe. It definitely wasn't because I needed the air, trust me. But somehow, mid-doze, and still groggy from all the booze and Fogs and, you know, having my face pounded in, I trundled up my bedding and  _squeezed_ out through a gap where the canvas of the tent met the ground, inching like an overstuffed worm.

I curled up in the shadows of the tent then, shivering, but wide awake, as something huge and angry and foul-smelling came in through the front of the tent and tore the place apart.

**0.-0.-0**


	11. Chapter 11

Lotta's parents weren't talking.

This wasn't new, really- her mother hatedgossip of all kinds, and not just because she was so often the center of it. Her dad wasn't much better; he just stayed quiet and unhappy-looking at the kitchen table, drinking tea with gnarled, fisherman's hands while his wife puttered anxiously around trying to keep everybody fed.

I had to get out of there after a while. I tried to get Lotta to come with me, but she wouldn't. Looked at her feet, and said softly that she couldn't leave her mama like this.

"They said…" she said eventually. "They said that he took Dad's boat."

So that was why her old man was stuck in the house, with his wife fixed on frying him everything in reach. Lotta didn't know any more than that, even when I pressed her, and I got so flustered over it that I split quicker than I'd intended, even with her mom cooking up an enormous, stress-induced breakfast.

I headed up the trail to Keys' shack, figuring that it was as good a place as any to start getting answers. Dad hadn't been in the house since before I'd woken up. I assumed that he'd headed on over to the training platform, same as every morning. I hadn't even seen him last night. He'd shut himself in his rooms without a word, and didn't even come out to fix dinner. I stayed out of his way, same as always, knowing that it didn't have anything to do with me either way. He'd talk to me when he wanted to, that was all.

Keys lived in a battered old fishing shack two doors down from Mrs. Lorre's. His house was awful and small and cramped, and I'd lived there for two lousy weeks when my mom died, what with Dad not being to handle the idea of her or me at the time.

It hadn't been much fun, but I couldn't really blame Keys for that. He'd been a lifelong bachelor with cupboards full of salt fish and booze, and I'd been a goggly five-year-old with a dead mom and no Lotta to keep me out of trouble yet. And Keys, he just swore, and smoked, and drank a lot, and got Mrs. Lorre next door (who was about ten years his senior and made jerked goat that could blow your head off) to watch me for a few hours a day so he could deal with his  _own_ grief, and we spent fourteen days playing nine-friggin'-million hands of five card draw and him offering me swigs of moonshine.

Dad took me back after that, and I stumbled into Lotta's life not too long after, so things calmed down considerably. Even afterwards, I never really had much reason to come out to his shack when I could just as easily find him napping out by the training platform. But this wasn't some lazy, sundrunk afternoon; this was nine o'clock in the goddamn morning, and nothing was the way it should be.

I'm sure I have no idea just what the hell he might have thought was going on when I started banging on his door- probably that the neighbors had rallied together to get him to move his still farther back into the trees- but I wasn't much for caring at the time. I pounded on that door until things start falling off the shelves inside, but nobody ever responded.

It wasn't until I was stomping back down the trail that I saw the curtain in the dirty window near the front door flick closed, as if some grieving old man had checked real quick to see if what was buggin' him had finally called it quits.

It hurt, but I guessed I understood. Gehrich had meant a lot of things to a lot of people, and to Keys he'd been sort of a grandson.

I suppose that I was having a hard time believing in any of it.

Gehrich couldn't just  _leave._

He was the best our Island had to offer. He was my dad's disciple, he was our first line of defense in case the raids ever started up again, he was our  _future_. Dad never quit talking about it most of the time- Gehrich was the only one, the  _only one_  who had what it took to master the Rouge style, and it was Dad's job to see that he learned it and was able to pass it on. Dad might have been the apple of the town's eye (a position he'd held ever since the first shipload of pirates he'd mauled into paste), but Gehrich was young, and  _really_ talented, even if you'd have to pull teeth to get Dad to admit it.

But then he'd vanished, and nobody seemed to know anything about it.

I was sitting on my front porch, digging splinters out of the floorboards when Dad finally walked out of the trees. It took one look at him for it to finally hit me, in the way that Lotta's nervousness, or Keys' hermit act hadn't.

He was stiff.

He moved wrong, for a man his size. His knee looked like it was bothering him, and there was a set to his shoulders that indicated a bruise or two. And there were bruises on his face. It was hard to see against the deep tan of his skin and the bristle of his mustache, but there they were. Puffy and discolored, and placed there with purpose.

Somebody had fought my Dad. Actually fought him, not just a training spar.

Somebody had fought my Dad and they'd managed to  _strike his face._

I don't know how long I sat there, goggling at my Dad like a tree monkey, unable to say anything, but he didn't seem to see me in any case, same as always. He was about to walk straight around me and into the house, moving like an old man moves, like an old man who's  _lost a fight_ moves , when he stopped. Ground to a halt, like one of those mainland clocks when they haven't been wound.

He stopped, and he looked at me. Really looked at me. Like he was seeing me for the first time.

I squirmed under it after a moment. I wasn't used to anything more than a perfunctory good-morning from my Dad, let alone this.

Eventually, he broke it. Drifted off in thought and made to move inside again, when my heart lunged in my chest and I wasn't able to hold it in anymore.

"What happened to Gehrich?"

My voice was small. Too small. Not the voice of somebody who Keys said showed a lot of promise for someone her age, at least.

He stopped again, but only because I'd made him. His answer was a long time coming, but he didn't turn his head to give it.

"He was weak," he said finally. "That's all."

His voice sounded large and implacable, and something about it made me  _shrink_ , even if I'd never done anything like that before. He shook his head, and finished gruffly, "He had no place with us."

With that said, he headed inside, leaving me feeling small and absurdly vulnerable in a world where sometimes people didn't just die and leave you gutted, sometimes they just left  _you_.

**0.-0.-0**

The next morning they blew up the camp.

I say they because for once I didn't have anything to do with it. I just stood stiff and still mostly broken at the edge of the clearing with the rest of the small group that I'd wound up in, not nearly as hung-over as the rest, but still feeling raw, and slightly ridiculous with my new claws weighing my fists down at my sides.

The gang was splitting up, or so I'd heard. Fracturing into half a dozen different directions and laying a tangled clusterfuck of trail across hill and dale for the army to find. Those who were left anyway- people had been trickling off since the small hours of the night, back to whatever normal lives they lived before Dell started whistling up accomplices again. All that remained was a couple core groups- a few heading back to the cities to keep an ear to the ground for the army's next move, to meet up with the other group at some undisclosed location way-the-fuck out yonder. Me, I'd ended up in Miles's group by sheer accident, along with a couple of his older bandit buddies, and a sheepish-looking Bellamy. Miles had a strung shortbow hooked over his shoulder, and a pouch of bedraggled arrows bouncing at his hip. Which group we were exactly, I didn't have a clue, but I hoped to high Soa that we weren't heading back the city. I'd had my fill of cities.

But first, for no apparent reason that I could guess other than that Dell wanted to make a statement, we were going to burn the camp to the ground.

He had a flair for gestures, I was coming to realize, and it was infectious. Feeling more than a little silly, I'd helped splash around the lamp oil along with everyone else, every tent in sight stuffed to the brim with brush and tinder and oily rags. The whole thing reeked to high heaven, but the gang went at it without so much as a grumble. Firebugs, all of them, and here I was one small, skittish thunder-child zipping across the carpet and trying not to shock everything I touched.

I felt odd, almost empty, as I watched a few men gingerly pry the wax caps off of each burn-out. It felt like my head was still reverberating, or as if I'd knocked something loose during the last few nights that still hadn't found a place to settle. Knocks to the head do that to you- when I was a kid and still training, I'd always found that the best thing to do after being punched in the face was to sit down somewhere quiet and have a good cry about it, but crying was up there on the list of Big No's these days. Best to lock it up and keep reassuring myself that no, I wasn't blacking out, or queasy, and while my nose was still so swollen that I couldn't even see if it was going to turn out off-kilter, none of the really nasty stuff associated with a nose break hadn't happened yet. The real danger had been those studs of Bellamy's- used right, and my head would have burst like a melon left in the sun too long. He didn't put half the power behind it that he should have.

_But you did_ , said a small hollow voice.

I flinched, and slammed myself back into the moment.

Hefting the bought magicks gingerly, the men in charge of the demolition lobbed them into the tents, saving the dining tent for last. For that, I saw a man pull a cork out of a scorched black bottle with his teeth, huck it, and  _run._

There was an enormous, mass step  _back_  as the men returned to the sidelines, and it wasn't for nothing. The littler tents caught quickly with the aid of the burn-outs and the oil-soaked contents stuffed inside. Those would leave more than enough of a fuck-you note to the army, if and when they ever found this place. But the dining tent where I'd thoroughly humiliated myself last night was the main event.

The whole clearing seemed to take in a breath, and then the tent fucking  _exploded._

The blast actually staggered me. The sound shocked me more than anything- I was expecting a firestorm like at the tavern, not a gut-punching explosion that echoed off of the mountains and vomited a beacon of black smoke into the sky. The burn-outs were just fire- enthusiastic, uncontrollable fire, but just that. Whatever this was had broken the clearing in  _half_ with its sheer percussive force.

The roar of it echoed off of the mountainsides, and then Hiram Dell, in a wave of cheering that sounded  _so weird_  coming from a bunch of hung-over pirates, finally appeared.

He looked as refreshed and purposeful as a reef shark, and was wearing a ratty brown coat over a blood-spattered Mille Seseauan tabard. Grinning like a cat with the canary's feathers still wedged between its teeth, he threw his hands up and shouted, "Think they heard that boys, so let's say we move out!"

And the gang cheered for him again, cheered for the smoke in the air and the sheer craziness of the moment, and for being alive and unwanted and untouchable. Even I got caught up in it a little, watching it from the sidelines as my fear faded. I felt it again, that weird, free-falling brilliant kind of crazy I'd felt standing outside of that burning tavern. That we could do anything, burn anything, and get away with it, because we were meaner and smarter and faster than anyone else.

It was the  _we_  feeling that did it for me, how sad is that?

I rolled my shoulders, feeling the twinge of pulled muscle and greening bruise, and ignored it.

That's the weird thing about getting the tar kicked out of you two nights in a row- everything seems to get muted down after that. All that mattered was the heavy, ominous weight of iron and leather on my wrists, and the road ahead of me. I turned to join my group and start the retreat.

Only to have my good feelings vanish.

Gasche had appeared over near Miles and the rest of the bleary-eyed crowd that made up my division- exactly when, I had no idea.

My gut suddenly roiling for all it was worth, I realized what it meant almost as soon as I saw it.

If the yellow freak was coming, then…

The nudge at my ribs hit right at the healing slice I'd received the night before last, and brought a raw twist of pain with it. " 'Less you got somethin' real important you wanna say to the army boys, I suggest you move the fuck out, sweet," he drawled, his voice sliding into my ear almost as insinuatingly as the way he slid an arm around my waist. He slipped free before I had a chance to shrug him off, and moseyed on ahead of me, hands shoved innocently in his pockets and whistling piercingly.

I clutched my side for a moment before I realized there wasn't any blood seeping through the bandage, and fought to wipe any trace of an expression off of my face. Once I managed it, I followed.

**0.-0.-0**

The Evergreen Forest seemed almost an entirely different place from the last time I'd sauntered through it with Mullet. Fall had struck hard, and while the dense trees and soft layers of mulch and dead needles underfoot were just as foreign as before, the withering greenery was even more disquieting. There was a snap in the air that made my nose prickle, and I was glad that I'd wrangled as many wool clothes as I could out of the wreckage of the armory tent. Walking helped with the cold, and so did the bit of breakfast I'd snatched before the march, but in the end, I was a skinny little tropical monkey trapped in the big cold north, and I suspected that I wasn't ever going to be all that warm.

Gasche had destroyed the tent. Having not found me asleep and vulnerable inside, he'd taken his barrel-and-a-half of crazy out on anything he could reach. I'd mourned the loss of the mirror in the morning, but it hadn't been me that he was stomping into spider-webbed slivers and that was enough. What had really gotten to me was listening to the grunting, half-incoherent Giganto mutt as he pawed through and broke everything he touched, mostly since I couldn't listen to it and not picture him breaking  _me_. I may have come into my own as far as fighting was concerned, but I had the distinct feeling that I could whale on him all I wanted and he wouldn't even notice.

But he hadn't killed me, and that was enough. I hadn't had much luck getting to sleep afterwards, though- it was too cold and too uncomfortable in the shadows behind the tent. I had dreamed, briefly, in the watery moment before dawn- an old fragment of a dream about Gehrich leaving that I hadn't had in  _years_.

I woke up tired and gritty-eyed, but weirder than that, I wasn't scared, or angry (or on fire), but  _sad_. Immediately afterwards there'd been a hiccupy moment of panic, like some black-winged bird was trying to force its way out of my chest, but I couldn't face it. I broke its neck and crammed it back down into the dark where it belonged. The red-and-black murder dreams, the ones with blood and fists and things that you couldn't take back, not ever, not even if you swore your sorries to the end of your days,  _those_  I could handle. A good hearty  _fuck you_  and a fight seemed to take care of it straight away. But not the other dreams. Not the ones where you woke up feeling small and sad and left behind. Fuck  _that._

This, I could deal with. Making a loud, flashy break and running for the hills- I could do that fine. It was a pattern that'd been set since I'd stepped off the boat, and it worked for me. It was Dell's pattern too, it seemed. Miles's, Bellamy's, and even Gehrich's- but where did I come in? I was just outrunning the tidal wave of guilt dogging my heels, but guilt didn't seem to have a place here. I didn't have to look back over my shoulder for it anymore, since guilt didn't mean anything here.

Why, then, was I still running?

My claws dragged me back down to earth. They were heavy and reassuring weights on my fists, even as they bumped awkwardly against my sides as I walked.

I could do a lot with these claws.

Could find Gehrich. Could fight to keep him. I could hold my own against swords, knives, spears even. I could break stone, bone, and wood, and I could rip my way through anything softer. Your heart's in your fist, Dad always said, and I had my fists wrapped up in water-warped leather and iron plate, where nobody could get through them.

_Plant a murderous thought in your heart and it spreads to your fists, that's what the teachings say_ , said that flat, dispassionate voice again.

I ignored it.

And promptly walked straight into Bellamy.

He yelped. And then clapped his hands over his mouth when Miles' head jerked up at the noise, who then glared at us for being total amateurs who couldn't even  _walk through the fucking_ woods without announcing to the world where we were. (Gasche just kept muscling on ahead through the trees without a care in the world, it seemed, with that same flat, black look of dead hate he always had. Dell was whistling off-key and walking behind him with a sideways smile on his face- not giving a shit and proud of it.)

I made a show of hauling Bellamy back onto the trail, patting him on the back, then swearing and apologizing as his eyes froze into some kind of rictus from the bruises I'd accidentally struck. I panicked and let go, and of course that's when he panicked and fell and then Miles started rolling his eyes to the skies and walked on without us.

"Uh," I said. "Sorry, about the-"

"No, I'm fine, I'm good," he said quickly, bouncing to his feet. "Really good! Couldn't be better!"

It couldn't have been further from the truth.

If I looked rough, he looked rougher. He might not have had my nosebreak to show for last night, and the strike I'd felled him with was hidden underneath his shirt, but from what I'd gathered, after the fight (and while I was busy getting my nose crunched back into place) the gang had started celebrating his not-getting-killed. They'd still been going at it when I'd tottered off to bed, and Bellamy looked like he was feeling it. He had raw, bruised circles under his eyes and a scrub of a beard that came in patchily, if it came in at all. I hadn't seen him in the bonfire, and surmised that he must have been horking in the bushes the whole time.

I felt awful.

"Listen," I said, as we started following Miles' lead again through the trees. "I'm really sorry about last night, I didn't even know that I was going to end up fighting you- I didn't  _want_ to, but-"

His eyes bugged out, "Are you  _kidding?"_

.... Wait, what?

Bellamy seemed to actually swell up while I watched him. "Mr. Gehrich's been gone for  _weeks_ and I don't have anybody to practice with and last night was  _awesome."_

_"_ But." I said slowly. "You  _lost,"_

_"_ I always lose!" he said. "Usually I don't even get a hit in! Mr. Gehrich says I'm a closet pacifist who can't bring himself to actually hit anybody, but before last night, I've never gotten a chance to actually show the guys what I've learned!"

I really didn't think that that was what Dell'd had in _mind_  for our little rumble last night, but I wasn't going to say anything. He looked so goddamn  _happy_. He was big and gangly and so green that I felt absolutely  _long in the tooth_ in comparison, but he made you feel cheerful, almost. Just by being there.

"So, you and Gehrich," I said, starting down the trail again. "You guys were close, then?"

"I think so," said Bellamy, his guileless brown eyes gone serious. "He never said as much, but that wasn't much like him in any case. We got along, though."

"Was he ….happy here?" I asked, feeling weirdly shy all of a sudden. It was so  _weird_ to hear things about Gehrich things that I'd never even dreamed he'd done when I'd go so long without any sort of clue as to where he was. It was like there was this whole, big world of stories to explore, stories about  _my_ cousin. It felt greedy, almost, just asking about him

It was different, that was all. Different to actually think about him, from day to day, and to not be afraid of bringing him up in front of the wrong people (Lotta's dad  _still_ wasn't happy about that boat, and Dad wouldn't tolerate any mention of him). But it was nice, too, to talk about my wayward cousin with this lanky, friendly kid who loved the Art and loved being the World's Most Inappropriately Friendly Bandit.

Bellamy's gait stuttered a bit when I asked my question. The filtered half-light beneath the trees didn't do much to illuminate the expression on his boyish face, but he gave a shaky smile after a moment.

"Well," he said. "He never looked all that happy, miss. He just kind of  _glared_ all the time."

I snorted.

His smile grew. It was nervous and big-toothed, but real. "But he really seemed to like being a part of everything. He liked drinking with the older members, and teaching me and the younger guys how to punch things. He says we're all hopeless, but he's  _funny_  about it."

Wistfully, he added, "He's a really good teacher."

He kept talking, and I kept listening with this painful sort of tug in my chest that reached so far back it  _hurt_. "…he says it's too cold here, and he gets awful snappish if you don't pay attention to what you're doing, but he says I've got a lot of potential."

"So, um," I said as we continued through the woods, wishing these stupid claws were off my arms for once so I could shove my hands in my pockets and warm them up a bit. "How'd you guys meet?"

"Ah, well," he said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "It's not as glamorous as most of the stories around here. I was in jail for something stupid. I'd teamed up with these men from back home- they were better at it than I was, that was for sure, and when the guard caught up with us, I took the fall. So," he continued, "My ma couldn't bail me out, so I was stuck in jail. They said the judge was going to have 'em lop my hand off when he made it out to Neet." His eyes ducked out from beneath his shaggy bangs almost bashfully. "Uh. You ever been in jail?"

I shook my head. Not yet. Not ever, if I had my way.

"Yeah, well," he shrugged. "Gehrich was in my cell."

Once I stopped cacklingand calmed down a bit, and after Miles glared at us yet  _again_  for being loud, mouth-breathing  _assholes_ , I motioned at Bellamy to give me a minute.

"What  _for?_ " I managed finally, half wheezing.

He shrugged. "I dunno. I think he was in the same boat as me. They were pulling something in Neet, and they got away with it, they  _always_ get away with it, but this time Gehrich got napped. They were all set to hang him and everything, in a week or so, but like I said, they got a circuit judge out there, and he hadn't made it yet." Hastily, he added, "But you wouldn't have known it from talking to him. He wasn't worried."

"Of course he wasn't," I muttered. (But still,  _no shit_  he wasn't worried, the one hallmark of a Rouge Warrior is  _being able to break down walls.)_

He blinked at me, but continued. "So, yeah. We talked for the couple of days we were there, and he taught me a thing or two when he got really bored, and when Mr. Dell broke us out, he said I should come with." His lip twitched. "He said I should think about it, in case I didn't have anything better to do."

…. Yeah, that sounded pretty much like Gehrich.

"He was always doing that," he continued enthusiastically. "He brought in loads of people- people with nowhere else to go. One of the reasons we're so  _big_ now is because of him. He _saved_ us."

He had this huge, unbelievable smile when he said it, and right about there my stomach dropped like a rock.

_Oh_.

_Oh, that explains a lot._

Dell didn't just  _not like_ my cousin. That was too simple. It wasn't just that he was doing too much of a bang-up job behind the scenes, and streamlining Dell's chaotic clusterfuck of a bandit gang, like Miles had said. It wasn't just because he was  _Gehrich-_ but because of the wagon train of lost souls and rejects that trailed behind him. People like me, or Bellamy, anybody else he could rope in. It wasn't because he was charismatic (GOD no- I mean, I love him and everything, but the Gehrich  _I_ knew couldn't have changed all that much from the surly teenager I grew up with) but because he did things like hang out in prisons for the hell of it and teach chokeholds to juvenile delinquents. He offered something. Come with me, and maybe there'll be something in it for you. Can't be any worse than staying here, right?

Hiram Dell, for all his skew-eyed charm, offered a sharp knife, and a chance to be on the right end of it for once. Occasionally.

And if Dell somehow noticed that half his crew were made up of lost lambs following Gehrich…

He'd get rid of Gehrich. Plain and simple.

But he couldn't kill him publicly. That'd split the gang right down the middle, he'd have a revolt on his hands.

Was he already dead? Was that all this was? Was Gehrich's trip just a pretext to keep the gang none the wiser while Dell had him quietly killed somewhere?

My heart lurched, and suddenly the light trickling down between the trees did  _nothing_ to brighten the gloom around us.

I couldn't.

I couldn't  _stay_ here, not for another moment, if that were the case. I couldn't-

But then, why take me along?

Like I'd said before, my being here was a way to control me  _and_ my stupid cousin. It kept a check on both of us, or  _would_ , once Gehrich heard I was on the Continent. So he couldn't be dead. There'd be no point.

…I hoped.

I suppose my face must have looked  _ghastly_ at that point, because Bellamy's worried face and worried voice broke into my reverie. "It," he said cautiously. "It isn't all bad, miss."

"What isn't?" I said automatically, before my brain caught up with my ears.

"This life," he said, quietly. "Working for Mr. Dell. Highway robbery and such."

I snorted. "So it's not all arson and pit fighting?"

"Er," he said, awkwardly. "Well. Not  _always."_ He shrugged it off, and continued softly, ""You'll learn to like it, miss. Mr. Dell, he's kinda  _mean,_ yeah, but he gives us free rein, and he'd never let us get caught. He's smart, and he respects us." He got a weird kind of look on his face. "Kinda. And we're  _really rich."_

"Oh yeah? How rich?" I asked.

"It's a percentage system based on rank, time with the outfit, and acts of going above and beyond the call of duty, for which  _you_ are eligible as of the bar fight," drawled Miles from up ahead. "Your average merchant party carries a couple thousand Millies, most times. Depends on what they're carrying. Payday's every third day of the month, or whenever we decide to split a particularly fat take."

"You guys have a  _payday?"_ I interjected.

" _Someone_ thought we ought to run this like a bonafide organization," purred Hiram Dell from further up, turning his head to roll his eyes at Miles (which made his one skew eye carousel off like a mad top.)

"I send mine to my Ma," said Bellamy. "She ain't got much else besides."

"You want some of your winnin's, kitten, you just let me know," drawled Dell, who was hanging back to catch my eye. "Otherwise, I'll hang onto 'em for you. Shee-it, got half the bank under me already, might as well make this a nine-to-five job while I'm at it."

He froze. Paused mid-swing.

I was looking at him, without even thinking about it, and I couldn't hide what was on my face. Gehrich and lonely prison cells and dead ends were all running through my head and I felt so unbelievably  _trapped._

And he smiled. Smiled like he knew everything, and knew I didn't have any way out, and he thought it was funny.

**0.-0.-0**

We made camp so far into the forest that we were reaching the foothills of the mountains leading up to Kashua. Our group had gotten more and more careless as the day went on, like they'd simply forgotten about the army patrols that were combing the woods. It bothered me enough that I eventually tugged Miles' sleeve and asked him what the deal was.

He surprised me with a sharp, satisfied smile. "Notice how deep we are in?"

I looked around. The trees were bigger, granted. They were gnarled giants, like something out of the darkest fairy tales. Half of 'em looked as old as the Rouge Isles.

But there was… something.

A hush. No animal noises, that was for sure. Usually you only got that kind of thing once you got close enough to a city, but this was the middle of the woods, and it was  _creepy_.

He nodded, watching my face. "There it is. There's something weird about the center of the forest. Haunted or something. I couldn't tell you if it's true or not, but we go in closer than the army dares." He shrugged. "So we circle around the worst bits for a couple of days to shake any tail we might have, and pop out the far side."

"What  _is_  it?" I shivered. "It feels like we're being watched or something."

He shook his head. "Can't say. But you couldn't pay me to go in further than we are now."

"Ghosts," said Boones, behind me. "Restless spirits. Or so my grandma always said."

"Horse shit," said the cat-eyed Fuenan a few feet over, his hair scraped back from his face in a shining salt-and-pepper braid. "Just the army being chicken shit, like usual."

"There's singing in the trees, sometimes," said Bellamy nervously. "Lights, too. I've seen 'em."

But the woods stayed silent while I was there, and as the sun went down, the trees loomed in around our fire like silent judges.

Dinner was nothing more than cold rations over a tiny fire, which I sat well away from to keep the farthest possible distance between me and Gasche, and to a smaller extent, Dell. I tried to eat, but between my own exhaustion, and the mental  _pummeling_ I'd taken throughout the day, I couldn't manage much. My gut clamped down hard on anything I got down, and after a while, I couldn't take it.

I couldn't sleep, I knew that. Not with Gasche so close, and especially when he still looked so pissed-off. But I drowsed, a little, with the heat of the fire so near, and my sore feet stretched out before me. My broken nose was a hot, throbbing pulse in the center of my face, and I was beginning to think that I should beg another Fog off of Miles, just to see if it could do anything more.

But then, as always-

"Your face looks like a mule done kicked it half to shit, sweetheart," said Dell as he thumped gracelessly down beside me. "Got just the thing for it." He smiled, friendly as a housecat, and produced a hip flask.

He flipped it to me, and I caught it, awkwardly, in one clawed hand. His lips twitched, and he murmured, "Like a kid with a new toy- can't bear to put 'em down."

I unscrewed the top. Neat whiskey, from the smell of it. I took a pull, and tried to pass it back, but he flapped a hand at me, uninterested.

"Gotta get you in top shape for tomorrow," he said, baring one sharp, shark's tooth. "Think you can pull off another one of those ninth-inning saves before we hit Magrad?"

I was quiet for a long moment. Thinking, unhappily. To cover it, I took another pull off the flask, and felt its warmth settle low in my belly. My nose still hurt, and so did everything else, but that would be settled soon.

I couldn't get the thought of Gehrich lying with his throat cut somewhere and me none the wiser out of my head.

I couldn't get around it.

"Careful with the long silences, honey, or I'll start thinkin' we ought to be doin' somethin' that ain't talkin'," Dell rumbled near my ear.

I choked on my next sip, and at that he laughed, and finally plucked the flask from my nerveless fingers and drained it in one smooth motion.

"I'll take that as a compliment," he said. "Though, shit, it'll break Bellamy's fool heart to see it happen. Boy's half sweet on you already- this happen to every fella you whale on, or just him?"

…So.

That made sense.

I couldn't think of a thing to say to that. Just looked down at my feet suddenly.

His eyebrows rose. "You didn't see that coming a mile away?" he said, his crooked teeth shining. "S'why I set you two up last night."

He buffed the flask on one sleeve. "That and the pile of cash that'll trade hands once you shack up with one of the boys. There's even," he leered, "A coin or two on Miles, in case granddads are more your thing."

_Moah yo' thang._ his voice bent the words until they were almost unrecognizable, and each hitting their targets with cruel accuracy.

"Won't that ruin the bet, letting me know about it?" I asked, still staring at my feet.

He grinned, and folded his arms behind his head, making a show out of getting comfortable. "Not unless you let on you  _know_ ," he drawled.

My hands curled, just the barest bit. Underneath their mask of leather and iron.

I made myself relax them.

"What's in Magrad?" I asked finally, the whiskey finally making its slow, languorous way through my blood. "That someplace the army can't get?"

He studied me, and smiled lazily. "Nearbouts," he said. "It's an old fort, up north. We're meetin' the crew there to divvy up the tax money, and bury the rest."

He tilted his head. "After that, your cousin's due back."

I stilled. Stilled to the point where I was barely breathing.

"And," he said, very delicately, and with that same, accent-fading precision, "If he does anything that I don't like, I'll kill him. If  _you_ do anything I don't like, I'll kill him. I'll put him down, right there in the snow." He looked at me directly, his too-pale eyes caught in the firelight.

"He gets the same deal," he continued. "Regarding you."

I looked up.

He was too close.

Some cool, detached part of my brain told me quite deliberately that from where he was sitting, and from where I was situated, I could bring my right arm around and bury my claws so far in his brain that he'd still be twitching five minutes after he'd already died.

Another cold, rational part told me that he'd drive a knife through my eye before I got close.

He smiled, and  _moved_.

Before I could flinch, he was on his feet, with a laugh on his lips. "Somethin' to think about, darlin', but never you mind." His hand shot out and ruffled my hair before I could duck out of the way, and then he was off.

I caught Miles' glance from across the fire. He was too far away to hear what we'd said, but his eyes were flat, and cautious, and they spoke a warning, loud as anything.

I looked away, but Gasche was in my line of vision next, and his hunched shoulders and the bleak look of hate on his face said, quite clearly:

_I will kill you._

I spent the night with one eye open, and my claws on.

**0.-0.-0.**

"Right," muttered Miles, on his belly on the wooded ridge overlooking the road. His lips were barely moving. "Armed guard near the front, four alongside the wagons, and a couple mounted guys in the rear.

"We take those out first, the rest won't know whether to shit or draw swords," remarked Langley, rubbing his wrists absently.

"So who does what?" I muttered back, trying, for once, to be quiet.

His eye slid thoughtfully over to me, and took in the circles under my eyes, my broken nose, and my general unkempt state. Bellamy was sweating behind me- he'd come all over antsy ever since we'd picked up on the merchant train coming up the pass. Me, I felt a rock in my gut that wasn't all last night's liquor, but still, an itch. A wild, cliff-diving itch of  _potential._

Hiram Dell had taken one look and said we were taking a detour.

"Well," said Miles. "I figure we sent the Yellow Jack out front, to take out the lead guards, but only after me and Langley snipe out the mounted ones. Then you, Bell, and the rest move in and divide the rest."

Gasche rumbled something contemptuous from behind the group, but he didn't actively object. Boones and the rest seemed not to have a problem with it either.

"Right," Miles said again, shuffling backwards out of the line of sight of the road. "Then it's decided, we-"

"New plan!" said Hiram Dell, bright and twangy and too-loud from behind us. He didn't even bother keeping his voice down- I saw Bellamy duck at it, though, like the wagon train was going to hear us.

Dell clapped a hand on my shoulder, "We sent short-stack here, right out front. Once she takes out the worst they can throw at her, we move in."

Miles started rubbing his forehead.

A beat. Then it hit me. "Wait, by  _myself?"_ I said.

"Aw, don't be like that, honey, this is nothin'," Dell said soothingly and spreading his hands out wide. "Jus' the chance you been waitin' for, I expect."

And he caught my eye, smiling that fierce, knowing smile, and suddenly, something clicked.

This was what I'd  _signed up for._

"Yeah," I said, suddenly, wallowing to my feet. I saw Miles twitch in surprise, and even Dell's eyes widened a little. "Sure. Why not?"

One by one, they turned and regarded me. Bellamy looked rather shocked.

I surprised myself by squaring up and facing Dell, bringing my claws up and stretching my fists. I felt each bruised and battered finger and each flattened and split knuckle swell up with muscle and bone and a core of strength that I was only beginning to discover inside myself.

Dell blinked at me, but then his face split in this  _huge_ , delighted grin. "Well all  _right_ ," he murmured, still smiling. "Glad to see you're starting to see things my way."

"The guard out front's a swordsman, if I make my guess," said Miles, wearily. "Not to mention the mercs behind him. Mayhaps they got a man with a bow down there too."

"More the better, isn't that the idea?" I retorted.

Fuck me,  _this_ was what things were supposed to feel like. Like the fight with Bellamy, like the fight with the guardsmen, like the fight with those two bruisers who kicked the tar out of Mullet before I stepped in. That hard, free,  _dangerous_ feeling, like you were the meanest shit-kicker in ten miles and nothing could stop you.

_You ready?_ I said to that hot, black shadow curled around my insides.

The weight behind my eyes increased, by a fraction of a breath.

_Yes_.

Making my way down the ridge was simple. The woods were thick, but when I burst out of the trees and onto the cleared road just beyond the bend in the road that hid the caravan from my eyes, I felt confident that I had room enough to move.

_This is what you are now._

The caravan cleared the corner, and I saw what Miles had been talking about. They were armed to the teeth, most likely due to the slew of reports coming in of banditry in the Evergreen. There was the guard out front, like he said, with a band of them walking alongside the Runner-drawn wagons. I couldn't see the mounted guards behind, but hopefully by the time they reached me, Miles and the rest could get a couple of shots off.

I felt cocky, golden, and untouchable, as the front guard made his slow way towards me, keeping pace with the wagons. He saw me, had seen me a long way back. Hard not to with me standing in the middle of the road with my claws on my hips and my water-warped boots planted firmly on the ground, but he hadn't reached for his sword, or alerted the others just yet.

And he did have a sword, I saw that now. Hanging off his hip, bouncing with his stide. A longsword.

_But I could deal with that now_ , I thought, a grin tugging at the edges of my lips.

When he drew near, close enough for me to smell the Runner sweat and hear the rumble of the wagons, I settled into my stance.

And suddenly, I had an idea.

A line.

A great line. The greatest line of all time. I won't even need to punch that front guard, it'll kick his ass all on his own, this  _is the greatest line_ I have  _ever, ever come up with._

"Hey mister," I said, sure and sublime. "Got change for a-"

He went for his sword,  _fast_ , unbelievably fast, and I was shocked out of my own fantasy, thinking,  _Holy shit, what gave me away?_ and I brought my arms up to block in a hurry, but then I caught sight of his face and holy fuck, it was  _Mullet_  and he looked  _pissed._

**0.-0.-0**


	12. Chapter 12

> _(let's go said he_
> 
> _not too far said she_
> 
> _what's too far said he_
> 
> _where you are said she.)_
> 
> _\- e.e. cummings, 16_

**0.-0.-0**

"Zieg!" yelled the wagon master from the middle of the caravan. "Sound out! What's going on up there?"

He didn't bother replying.

He looked different.  _Stood_ different. Something about having a sword on his hip and a proper haircut made him look like an entirely different man, which might have been why it took me so long to recognize him.

Of course, the man  _I_ remembered was a slump-shouldered, beat-down, sad-eyed  _wimp_ , not the grim,  _extremely pissed-off_ man before me.

Somehow I think he remembered the gates of Deningrad.

(Just a guess.)

But really, there wasn't much to worry about, no matter how mad he was about me ditching him at the city gates. I mean, he was a pushover _,_  had been from the first moment I'd met him. This was going to be  _embarassing._ Just because he found a sword somewhere didn't mean-

In one smooth motion, he unsheathed his sword and brought it whipping round in a wicked arc towards my stomach.

I squawked and stepped out of his reach just barely in time, the barest tip of his sword ripping a gash in the fabric of my shirt, then ducked as his return stroke nearly took my head off.

Shouts of alarm began to come from the center of the caravan, but they sounded puzzled more than anything. Evidently the idea that this was a bandit attack hadn't crossed anybody's mind. They were used to _less lame bandits._

I was skidding backwards in the dust, my stomach somersaulting in sheer panic- and somehow, ridiculously, I couldn't get over the fact that Mullet was  _here, now,_ and I should have been absolutely fucking terrified right then but mostly I was just kind of, um,  _confused._

Mullet- er, Zieg-  _whoever_ , moved in a way that belied that stiff, uneasy way he used to carry himself- he moved fluidly, like his bones were water. He still had some of that stiffness in his shoulders, and he still seemed to have that same old slouch, but he was  _good_. Good like Dad was with his fists, like Keys used to be, back in the day. And me, I was barely keeping up with him- I jerkily sidestepped one, two strokes, still feeling like I was moving through quicksand in comparison, still trying to get over the fact that he was  _here,_ that this was  _happening,_ that- holy shit, pay attention, because he's just feinted and now he's going to bring it overhand and block, you idiot,  _block!_

I squeaked and reacted quickly and caught the blow clumsily on the armored plates on the back of my arm with a dull clang.

This.

This was a mistake.

I stumbled back, my lips gone flat and white, trying to get more space between us at any cost.

The impact nearly broke my arm.

He stood and gave me a look of satisfaction.

I sucked in a breath. Looked at him, hard. But then, swimming up cautiously from the furthermost edges of my mind, the question slipped out before I could stop it. "Why didn't you do this  _before?"_

He paused, his sword held out to the side in a grip that was as steady and unmoving as stone.

My breath caught. Just a little. Because he might be too far gone, might, you know,  _hate my guts_ a little too much to remember that terrible morning in the inn with bad coffee and bad porridge and the gold piece clattering across the floor, but maybe,  _maybe_ …

And then, wonder of wonders, he gave me a tight, comprehending smile and dove back into the fight.

I tried to turn things around, to quit acting purely on the defensive, but it was tough going seeing as he was fast, methodical,  _brutally_ strong, and a fucking  _beast_ with a sword. We were enclosed in a half-circle of gawking spectators at this point, and I shudder to think of what the gang thought, watching this all from back in the trees, but I didn't have any room in my mind for it. Everything I had was focused on not getting my head taken off.

He moved in a way that brushed right on by what I'd come to expect from my bouts on the Continent- he didn't think about what he was doing, for one; instead he was unhurried, and completely instinctual, and it chilled me to watch. The form of things, every move he made came smoothly, one after another, without their having to make a detour to his brain for him to actually think them through.

He  _hammered_ on me after that, having noticed how difficult it was for me to block rather than to simply step out of the way and resolved to not give me the opportunity- blow after blow aimed for my head and shoulders. Each one sent a kaleidoscoping burst of white, agonized light to explode behind my eyes, but I put up with it until something screamed its fury inside my head, and I responded with a kick to his chest that knocked him back some, and then, without thinking, crammed every murderous impulse I had into my fist and shot my claws straight towards his throat.

He ducked back, easily, his too-blue eyes tracking my claws through the air and narrowing slightly in thought, or recognition, or some other inscrutable emotion. He made a contemptuous dart at my retreating arm, which stung and rattled all the way up to my shoulder when it bounced off the iron. He followed it up with another, to which I danced straight up and through his guard and grabbed his wrist, twisting his elbow round in the kind of joint-killing move I  _loved_ , but the fucker threw his weight into me at the worst possible time and sent me stuttering backwards in the dust. And Black Gods help me, I was sweaty and frustrated as all hell, and this was going to be  _humiliating_ once the gang caught up with me, but I was biting a grin between my teeth the whole time because he was  _good_  and he was  _dangerous_  and  _so was I._

And then, just like that, things changed.

Black gods, I didn't know how to explain it. It was like… in the midst of the awful, desperate shock that was seeing him, and then him trying to extract the worth of everything I'd stolen from my  _raw flesh_ , it was like something clicked. His perfect form and his nearly surgical finesse didn't diminish, that wasn't it- it was like I suddenly found myself dropping into a rhythm buried so far deep in my bones that it felt like second nature. I'd  _learned_ this. Rouge Style was all about facing an armed opponent with just your fists and feet- it wasn't invented so we could fight each  _other._ I'd nearly forgotten about this feeling. It wasn't like the desperate, back-alley brawls I'd been hurling myself into headfirst and screaming, this was-

The bubbling, indefinable feeling in my chest finally presented itself.  _Not_ fear,  _not_ guilt, just a nearly-hysterical appreciation for the moment.

I'd lost this, I thought.

That night, at the fire, with all those guards pouring down the street towards me and Dell chuckling at my back. Or afterwards, in the dining tent, too full and too drunk and too afraid of hurting Bellamy to put myself in the moment, and the brutal shock of a broken nose. In trying my hardest to stay alive, in fighting as quick and as dirty and as desperately as possible, my form had turned to shit quicker than I'd thought possible.

I barely noticed at first, but as my form tightened, and as my technique pulled itself back into the quick, cold precision of a Rouge Warrior, something about Mullet's form seemed to melt into something else as well.

He stopped taking the quickest shots- stopped focusing only on seeking to break through my guard to land on my head or neck. I'd remembered my training, remembered how to take a hit without feeling like my arm was about to break, and his attempts lost some of their effectiveness as a result. He hadn't lost any of the cold anger- his eyes were still as a flat as mirrors, but perhaps a tad more appreciative of what skill I had- but I'd thought him a swordsman before, but fuck  _me,_ he drew himself up and held himself like a fucking  _artist_  after that.

 _This_ is what I thought banditry ought to be about. A fair fight in the middle of nowhere, none of this blood-and-darkness nonsense, no nightmares, no hornets and seagulls in my head, just me and some beat-up swordsman with a score to settle. I shoved the circumstances and the rapidly-forming circle of baffled guards around us to the back of my mind, and concentrated on getting so far inside his reach that he couldn't bring that fucking sword to bear anymore. He reacted as scornfully and precisely as possible, until I noticed that while he still hadn't lost any of the fury in his moves, the bastard was beginning to smile. And not a creepy, skin-crawling Hiram Dell sort of smirk, but the kind of blood-pumping delight that comes from a fight that ain't half bad.

He looked  _young_.

I should have been worried- should have thought of what,  _exactly,_ the gang might be thinking watching this, and how dangerously boredDell might be getting, but all I had room for at the moment was the very, very cold thought that crept into my mind just then:

 _His reach. Get in his_ reach.

I saw an opening and I took it. He swung, and missed ( _barely_ ) but I slithered right on up his sword and instead of grabbing his wrist, I pressed real,  _real_ close, close enough to bury my nose in the collar of his shirt and smell the tang of his sweat, and slammed my claws up and into his ribs.

They didn't connect.

They got fouled in that awful green coat of his-  _stuck ,_ and before I could pull 'em free, he twisted his waist and yanked me off balance and while I was too close for  _one_ end of his sword to work, he could and didcrack me over the head with the pommel. My feet went out from under me while stars ricocheted through my vision, and I landed on my ass in the dirt of the road, my claws shredding his coat uselessly as I fell.

When my sight cleared, I looked up, and there was a sword at my neck.

"You took something of mine."

His voice was dispassionate, and his mouth a flat line. Looking up at him, I could see the faint sheen of sweat on his brow, his dusty blonde hair shining in the faint sun.

I swallowed.

In a small, conciliatory voice, I said, "It's not like I thought you'd notice _._ "

He breathed out hard through his nose, and fuck me if he didn't look  _annoyed._

Of course, that's when the first arrow buzzed by his ear and buried itself in wagon behind him with a heavy  _thok._

Mullet blinked.

One of the guards near the back dropped with a shout, a raggedly fletched arrow thudding high into his back. Two more followed.

…The guards figured out what was really going on after that.

To give him credit, when everybody started shouting and things started to go all to shit, Mullet didn't remove his sword, and he didn't jerk and cut my throat either. What he  _did_ do was whip his head to gawk at the rear of the caravan like everyone else, and that's when I took my chance.  _One_ I was rolling to my feet and  _two_ I nailed him right on the jaw  _three_ he went down in a heap.

Then I turned on the crowd.

I swear I saw Bellamy in there at some point, and I  _know_ I saw Gasche cripple a Runner with that monster blade of his- tearing right through its shoulder in one swing and sending it toppling over its rider, screaming all the while. But I was trapped near the front, where all of the  _other_ guards had gathered, and really didn't have enough concentration left over to see what the others were doing.

Though, to put it mildly?

The rest of the pack of guards didn't have much on the opening act.

I whooped and dove into the fight like a hillbilly hurricane, using the armored backs of my claws and the steel in my toecaps to dole out as much hurt as possible. It felt like I was dancing- like I was doing a two-step ragtime across a heaving stage, biting a laugh between my teeth the whole time. I'd  _won_. I'd won and I was winning and being a bandit was  _fun._

And then, well, it stopped. Most of the guards figured out real quick that standing up and waving a sword around wasn't really in their best interest, and the wagon drivers and merchants that made up the rest of the caravan mostly put their arms over their heads and hid in the wagons. Not that it did them much good once Gasche reached in, plucked them out, and threw them in the pile with the rest of the downed guards, where Bellamy and one of the older bandits were busy hobbling them. They did it with the kind of efficiency that comes from  _long_ practice, and I was reminded that this really was a sort of career for them, hiding in the woods and leaping onto unsuspecting businessmen.

Mullet groaned, beginning to stir, and I was gripped by a momentary sense of panic, since I didn't really want to hit him  _again,_ and neither did I want to do anything awkward like, talk to him. (Or call him by his actual name.) Thankfully, before he came completely 'round, Bellamy tossed me a length of cut rein, and I was able to hogtie his wrists behind him before he could do anything drastic. I kicked his sword off and into the bushes, just to make myself feel better.

On his belly, in the dirt, the swordsman glared up at me, but then looked away.  _Very_ pointedly.

Well  _fine,_ I thought.

I wasn't even breathing hard. I hurt, definitely, but it was a stretchy, sapling kind of hurt that meant green growth after one hell of a winter.

Somehow, by some wild, dumbass streak of luck, we'd ended up with a bloodless victory.

Well, mostly. A couple of the guards were still moaning in the back, and that Runner that Gasche'd mauled wasn't gonna be giving the neighborhood kids a ride around the block anytime soon, but  _still._

The feeling that this dredged up inside of me was indescribable- it was sort of floaty and struggling and persistent, but delight was in there somewhere and a whole heap of _overpowering smugness,_ because I could totally do this if I put my mind to it, I just had to-

"What the fuck was  _that_ all about?" snapped Hiram Dell from behind me, somewhere near the wagons.

I turned.

He was wiping one of his knives off on his tabard, the fresh blood looking bright as paint compared to the rusty ruin already there. He gave me a long, lazy look the whole time, one eyebrow canked up in a way that looked perfectly friendly if you didn't know him better, then glanced pointedly at Mullet.

Actually, he seemed kind of pissed off. Which was kind of weird, until-

And then I remembered the fight against Bellamy, and that night in the tavern, and how  _pleased_ he'd been to throw me in over my head just to watch me nearly drown, and that seeing me get into a ridiculous dust-up that only served to  _confuse everybody_  might not have been what he wanted. It didn't matter that I'd single-handedly provided a big enough distraction to draw all the guards to the front and leave the rear unguarded- the only thing that mattered was that I didn't have gore up to my elbows and a body count stacked up to the eaves.

I swallowed.

But that was fine, I could deal with this. I just had to keep my cool.

Hiding my unrest, I pointed a thumb back at Mullet. "We've… met." I said lamely.

Somehow, I really, really did not want to get into our ridiculous meeting at the Fuenan inn at the moment, and not just because I felt like I'd burst into flames out of sheer embarrassment.

(Or because Mullet might go into frothing, rage-induced convulsions.)

I didn't want to tell him, and that was it.

My last word hung limply in the air for a moment before Dell finally let them drop. He looked Mullet and said mildly, "Old boyfriend?"

Mullet made a noise somewhere between a cough and grunt that sounded absolutely  _appalled._

I shot him a glare, which he ignored, and was about open my mouth to answer with  _God_ no, when-

"We got the cargo situated," said Miles benignly from behind Dell. "Might wanna take a look, Boss."

Dell gave me a long, loving stink-eye at that, but he turned and ambled off to investigate, leaving me behind.

Miles watched with his gloved hands jammed in the pockets of his ratty coat, a dark expression on his hangdog face. "This ain't right," he muttered under his breath.

I glanced nervously at Mullet, but he seemed to be ignoring us. Well  _fine_.

"What isn't?" I asked, just as quietly.

Miles looked at me briefly, then kept his eye fixed on Dell.

His mouth barely moving, he said, "Why the fuck do you think we've been slogging up creek beds and snorting pine needles for the last day and a half? Why do you think we risked circling the center of these  _haunted fucking woods_?"

Grimacing, he rubbed his unshaved jaw. "We shouldn't be pulling this shit so close to the main roads."

"Yeah, but," I said, slowly. "We're getting money out of it, right? I mean, that's the whole point."

He spat on the ground. "We don't  _need_ the money, kid. And we don't need the army tracking a string of hits all the way to Magrad."

But we  _won,_ I wanted to say. It looked like I was going to fuck everything up, but then I  _didn't,_ for once. This is us being fast and cunning and bold, this was us getting away with it all.

He shook his head and muttered darkly, "This'll all end in tears, wait and see."

I didn't want to believe him. Didn't want to right down to my bones, because I'd needed this so badly. But then I remembered, that awful morning under the wagons with blood in my nostrils-

_Dell don't like that sort of thing."_

".... people taking charge?"

"Things going smoothly."

However, this didn't diminish the fact that I was actually kind of excited to find out what they might be carrying. This was my first serious hit- the first fight I'd had on the continent that hadn't ended in blood, death and darkness.

(Er…  _some_ blood, I guess, but  _work with me_.)

Hiram Dell seemed to cheer up from his previous annoyance, and didn't look the slightest bit concerned as he swung up alongside the cargo wagon. The wagon master, a solidly built fellow in thick furs who perched uneasily on the wagon seat like he wasn't quite sure how exactly he'd managed to remain unscathed, regarded him with no small amount of distaste.

This, I felt was unwise.

"Afternoon  _suh_ ," drawled Dell as he brushed by the men already hauling the canvas off of the cargo wagon. "We're here on the behalf of the Deningrad Better Business Bureau, jus' got a few question if you don't mind." He scratched his head with one hand, still smiling huge and friendly. "What's this you're carrying then? Weapons? Fur? Mother o'pearl inlay for the Queen's shithouse, what?"

"This is  _unconscionable."_ snarled the wagon master. "This is a Kashua Company caravan selling  _directly_ to the lumber yards at Neet- you're crippling our business with these pointless raids!"

Dell blinked innocently at him. "That right?" he said casually, slinging his hands into his pockets. "Well  _bless."_

Jerking his chin towards the cargo wagon, he snapped, "Boon, what's the story on that loot?"

The Runners had been unhitched earlier (save for the one Gasche had crippled, which Miles had quickly ordered put out of its misery.) and every single guardsman and merchant belonging to the caravan was huddled in a morose pile over towards the trees

The wagon master kept up his sputtering as Boon and a few of the older bandits quickly unearthed the cargo.

There was some commotion during, and a great deal of cursing, but then Boon poked his head out of one of the wagons.

"It's scrap, boss." he rumbled.

"What?" I said.

" _What?"_ said Dell.

("Hmph," said Mullet, only  _nobody cared.)_

Boon tossed a length of iron back into the wagon with a clatter. "Scrap iron. Nails n' lumber too, from the looks of it. Might be worth somethin' in Neet, but shit,  _we_ can't use it."

The wagon master glared down at us. "Kashua Company has a contract with the lumber yards-  _we're_ their sole supplier. They're buying up every ounce of raw material in a hundred miles."

Dell began rubbing the back of his neck. That same, dangerous look of annoyance from earlier flashed across his narrow face.

"Is that… bad?" I whispered to Miles, lips barely moving.

He snorted, but quietly. "It's typical, anyway. The merchants are spooked, so any kind of shipment needs an armed escort. Could still be worth our while, if they're carrying any cash with 'em."

"How 'bout a cashbox, you got a cashbox, grandpa?" asked Dell, not giving our side conversation a moment's attention.

The wagon master spat, and I saw the surrounding bandits give him identical wary looks usually reserved for dogs with suspiciously foamy jaws.

"We're a  _company_ caravan- we don't handle the cash," sneered the wagon master.

At that, everyone seemed to take one step back.

Then I heard a muffled, vicious series of noises that eventually identified themselves as Miles swearing as hard as he could under his breath.

Hiram Dell's grin became slightly fixed as he shook his head. "Lemme get this straight," he drawled. "You're hauling four wagons of yard clippings and  _no cash_  through the woods, and you hire ten fully-armed guards and one," he flapped a hand at Mullet, who was watching with no large interest, " _show fighter,_ to stop anyone from takin' it from you?"

"We were concerned," said the wagon master tightly, "about the  _bandit problem."_

…. Oh,  _hell_.

He then glared at Mullet. "As for him, he's a recent hire. Tell me, how long has he been working for you?"

Dell barked a laugh. "Was just wondering that myself, thanks for reminding me."

Still smiling that fixed, brittle smile, he turned and looked at me so coldly, and so directly, that I  _shrank._

He clapped his hands together, and seemed to come back to his old, canny self. "Well, seems like we won't be makin' a big haul today boys, but I figure we can still scrape something out of this deal."

My unease grew, and I fought the urge to squirm.

I was disappointed, sure. This was supposed to be a sting mission, or so Dell had put it when we'd first seen the caravan. Dive in, break any resistance, then haul ass with as much money or goods we could carry. But they didn't  _have_ any money, and unless Dell had a pressing need for nine hundred pounds of scrap metal, we were in an awkward position.

This was… Wrong. And worse, unprofessional. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. We were the victors. We were supposed to be rich and clever and, you know,  _victorious._

…. And I may have just cost Mullet his job. That too.

Hiram Dell ambled on over to the wagon that Boon occupied, and hopped up on the edge. He sank one arm into the trash pile and rummaged around until he found what he was looking for- a spiked length of iron as long as my leg.

He twirled it idly in both hands. "Way I see it," he drawled. "We can at least leave a message."

With a skip in his step, he crossed the clearing and made a gesture at Gasche. The yellow giant, leaning on his broadsword which he'd sunk into the ground a good foot or so, grunted and hefted the thing over his shoulder as he headed towards the prisoners. He bared his ruined teeth, then hauled a guard by his shirt-collar out of the pack. The guard was young, terrified, and quickly going purple from the pressure on his neck, and he coughed explosively when Gasche planted a boot on his stomach to hold him still.

He was young. I would remember that. He was young, and had brown hair, and freckles on his nose and he looked so  _scared,_ but then I lost sight of his face when Dell stepped in between us and brought the spike whistling down with a  _crunch_.

He killed him, and my world cracked right down the middle.

The remaining guards and merchants all began shouting at once- the wagon master was  _howling-_ and Dell just stood there with a curl of a smile on his face.

Miles' hand was clamped down on the back of my neck, keeping me rooted, keeping me from doing anything stupid, but then I wrenched free and stumbled to the side to retch into the bushes.

My arms wrapped around my midsection, I heaved. My claws pricked my sides and I panicked. Fumbled with the straps. Had to get them off, had to get away-  _I wasn't a killer no, I didn't have it in me, I_ lied _, I couldn't do this, couldn't sit by and-_

( _You are you did you will.)_

( _You_ knew _.)_

My eyes opened, and Mullet, Zieg, this strange, damaged man that I'd hurt and cheated and hurt some more without batting an eye, was staring at me. Blue eyes fixed on mine, and _serious._ Not angry, like the fight, and not that cautious delight that the fight had turned into, but deadly serious.

He was studying me.

I shook my head.  _No, don't look at me, don't see what I am. I can't do this, I can't_ -

"What's the matter, darlin'?"

Dell's voice rang out like a cracked bell, bright and wrong and grating. He'd removed the spike, and dropped it carelessly on the grass, still bloody. The guard was dead. He hadn't taken long.

_She hadn't either, she-_

_NO._

I was shaking like someone in a fever. And my voice shook too, when I spoke.

"You didn't have to do that."

The others had gone silent. The wagon master as well, but mostly because he was currently bleeding from the mouth from where the Fuenan had hit him. He watched wordlessly, his protests dead on his lips.

He understood.

Dell actually laughed. He sounded surprised. Delighted, even. "What,  _him?_ Kitten,  _now_ ain't exactly the time to get squeamish. You done worse and you know it."

His smile stretched out to his ears, his mad blue eyes dancing like sparks as I went white. He shook a finger at me, like some doting old uncle. "Don' lie now. I seen you. This ain't new for you."

"What's the  _point?"_ I spat, ignoring his last remark.  _No, I didn't I never meant_ _I never-_

He shrugged. "Why not? Gift for the army boys. Give 'em something to think about."

"You didn't have to. We  _won_. They  _gave up."_ I gritted out.

"No?" he said, pasting a look of surprise on his face. "Honey, have you  _heard_ of us?"

I faltered. Looked around.

The gang, and for that matter, the merchants, guards, everyone, were watching with grave interest. Bellamy looked upset,and the look on Miles' seamed face was so black and shuttered that it frightened me even further. But worst of all was the gleaming spark in Gasche's eye as he watched, the  _waiting_ I found there.

He thought I was about to fall, and he wanted to be there to stomp on me when I did.

Dell's lips pursed, thinking. He seemed engaged in a ferocious bout of concentration, and then I realized that he was actually  _puzzled_ by my inablity to accept his decision. He'd clearly thought what I'd thought, that I was in, for good or ill. That I'd thrown my lot in with no reservations.

_So had I. I thought I could. Black gods, I told myself that I was a fighter, a killer, any terrible thing I needed to be to keep moving, but-_

I felt like such a child. Like I'd barged into a group of bigger kids with bigger toys and demanded to be allowed to join a game that was so far above my head that it wasn't funny, and now I was horrified that when  _they_  played guards and robbers like the rest of us, they  _killed the guards when they were done._

Dell tried another tactic. One I was coming to know well.

Persuasion.

He smiled, expansively. Took a casual step towards me. His earlier annoyance and puzzlement had vanished like mist under a hot sun- something new had presented itself. The chance to make me do something that I  _did not want to do_ was too much to resist.

"Kitten," he said, and I bridled. He paused, midstep, and regarded me with a faint, calm little smile on his crooked face.

He nodded coolly at Mullet behind me. "Do him next."

Before the shock could sink in, before my brain could film over in cold, greasy panic, I heard very faintly from the ground behind me, a sighed, "...ooof course."

 _Not helping!_  I snapped inwardly.

I must have looked as shocked as I felt, because Dell grinned.

"He ain't nothing, right?" he said, stepping closer, cool and casual as you please. "So do it. Put those badger-claws of yours to work. See how good it feels."

I suddenly began to regret that I had nothing left to throw up.

I still hesitated, and Dell's face twisted. "Claire, if you ever want to see your fucking cousin again, you get the job done."

That hit.

It was a sucker punch, meant to knock the wind out of me, and it did.

It was like being at the end of a long, black tunnel, with a blinding, terrible light at one end, and all around me was howling darkness. It was standing on the edge of a precipice with the ground crumbling beneath me and claws pricking 'round my throat.  _A liar I lied I didn't know I didn't want to know I never meant I can't_ -

 _Gehrich, he'll kill Gehrich, he'll make me_ watch.

And for one lightning flash of a moment- I considered it.

I actually considered it.

And Dell saw me considering it, and his face  _split_  he was grinning so big.

My voice shook, and without thinking, the words tumbled out like stones. "N-no. No way."

 _Really?_ a voice in the back in my head, somewhat relieved.  _We're not? Oh good._

The other voice, that yowling black presence that harnessed my fury and powered my fists just  _shrieked_.

I shook it off. Tried to think clearly, tried not to give in to my anger just this once. It was hard, harder than I thought it would be  _when had it gotten this hard to control_? But I had to focus, had to keep my head clear, because this was some shaky fucking ground right here. I'd joined up, told him he could do anything he wanted with me, told him I'd do anything to see my cousin again, I handed him the reins and I didn't even stop to consider the fact that maybe he was going to  _drive me right off a cliff._

But I could do it, could clamp the bit between my teeth, could turn tail and run for the hills now if I so chose, but black gods, Mullet, I owed him better than this, I owed him, this was my fault, all of it, I never, I didn't-

He was talking again, and I strained to listen, and then my blood turned to ice.

"-act like I don't know what you're capable of, like you ain't never dared." He grinned at me, his eyes too pale and too cold to even be human. "What was that you kept wailing that night after the fire, in the wagon? Couldn't shut you up, seemed like, just when it seemed like you was done, you started up again." he mused. "Soa, what was that name you kept moanin', s'onna tip of my tongue. Lorna, Liza, Lettie-"

"Shut up," I snarled.  _"Shut your fucking mouth."_

I actually said it. Quicker'n I could blink, quicker'n I could ever hope to achieve again. An ugly, gut reaction and my voice was ugly-sharp when I said it.

I was in a fighting stance before I knew it. On the balls of my feet, fists cocked, at the ready. Ready to fucking kill him before he ever spoke again.  _Not her name not you ever I'll fucking gut you._  The anger, the killing rage that had eluded me while fighting Mullet swept up around me like a choking fog and my vision went all black and red at the edges, boiling with hornets.

I could do it now. This was all I could ever do.  _War is my master, war is my art, and I beckon death._ I could launch across the clearing and have my claws in his guts before he could ever say her name for everyone to hear.

_(I DIDN'T.)_

And Hiram Dell just stared at me.

On some level, I guess he hadn't known what an important button he'd found before he'd pushed it. On another level, he was clearly ecstatic to have pushed me so far over the edge that I'd lost all decorum.

On another, he was so visibly annoyed at having his power challenged that something in him actually seemed to snap.

He smiled at me again. A different smile. Not cajoling, not poison friendly, not mocking. A knowing, almost regretful smile. He smiled at me, and he didn't blink, and what it said was that he was going to punish me and he was going to enjoy it.

He went for his knife. My mind raced.  _Here, this, we're doing this now, Gehrich, I'm not ready, I didn't think oh god he nearly said your_ name _-_

_KILL HIM. BREAK HIM ON THE ROCKS FOR THE GULLS TO PICK OVER._

The pressure in my head made my ears throb, and the blackness rising in my vision was becoming overwhelming. I shifted, dirt and rocks grinding beneath my heel, getting ready, curling my fists, this was happening, this was now, this was  _war._

And then, naturally, there was a flash of green light and I fell flat on my face.

Dell, of all things, looked confused.

I admit that I was also sort of puzzled, with my cheek resting on the dirt and my arms awkwardly trapped beneath me. I huffed a breath and tried to scramble back to my feet to give this a second go-round, when my limbs refused to obey me. I very literally could not move.

I was stunned.

No, correction, I'd been Stunned, this was-

The ground rumbled. That was all the warning we had. The ground rumbled and the birds exploded from the trees, and then the trumpets started up, blaring loud and clear like the end of the world, and then it dawned on the gang with all the suddenness of a rock to the head-

I don't know who shouted it, but they sounded strangled with panic-

"It's the  _army_!"

You've never seen a gang of bandits dissolve so fast. They _bolted._ The men guarding the prisoners vanished into the trees without one more word, followed shortly by the crew who'd been picking through the useless, cursed cargo. Miles was gone in a shot, he didn't spare me a single glance- Bellamy looked over his shoulder once, confusion and shock warring on his wide face, but he was gone too.

Dell paused. Paused for one minute, on the edge of the trees, looking at me, and looking at the approaching horseman, and he didn't have a minute to spare, but he spared one for me. He looked at me, and he looked at the army, and then he appeared to put two and two together and then his eyes  _narrowed_. The look he gave me then was flat and serious and full of fucking promise, and then he vanished too.

_What, what did he-?_

The army descended.

**0.-0.-0**

I didn't have the best view of things.

The wagon master, him I heard. Talking to the captain, the one in shining silver armor with the Divine Tree emblazoned on his breastplate, who I'd seen briefly as he approached. Loud and squally as a cat in heat, and  _outraged_. Kept talking about the guard they'd killed and the Runner they'd destroyed and the  _gall_ of the man who'd doublecrossed him, and yes, that's one of them, that's the girl, they sent her out first to meet with their man, she's the one. Her and the blonde they'd tied up for the pretense, never should have hired him, didn't even come with a reference.

I couldn't move. Couldn't think. All my energy was being pushed through my useless limbs, struggling in vain against the implacable bindings of the Stun spell. Cheap, bought magick, that was all it was, but it worked. Must have nailed me with it when they were creeping up the road. Thought I'd heard something before about it having only a short time before I wore off, and hoped it would be soon. If I could get free, I could fight my way loose, no problem, give 'em the slip in the trees, meet up with the gang. Get back to Dell, grovel, do anything,  _anything,_ get him not to cut Gehrich's throat. Get him to take me back, I'd kill anyone he wanted, I'd do that, I could,  _just don't let them take me off to jail, don't let them lock me up, I can't do that, I can't._

My field of vision included most of Mullet- Zieg, whoever, that strange, sad swordsman I'd screwed over and left in the lurch, and then screwed over again for the hell of it, because I'm stupid and selfish and that's what I do and I'm sorry, I am. He was bent up almost as awkwardly as I was, his shoulders hunched as if already anticipating a kick. Then his face came into view, and I realized that he'd been inching towards me, his blue eyes on mine. His face was guarded, but worried, and his lips were moving, barely, he was trying to say something to me, but then I felt it, the give in the spell.

I was coming loose.

I didn't waste any time. I thrashed, awkwardly. Already I felt the blood rushing back through my limbs, strength returning to my muscles, and  _they hadn't taken off my claws yet._

A shout. A clatter. They'd seen me twitching.

They raised the alarm, and then the back of my head exploded in agony as someone slammed something brutally heavy down on it. My nose shrieked as my face was driven into the dust- I feared that it had been re-broken, or shoved out of place. My stiff arms lurched upwards to protect my face and head, but it wasn't enough. Then there were more of them, using the butt ends of their halberds, their boots, their fists.

They then proceeded to beat the ever-loving shit out of me.

There's really no way for me to describe it- I can't  _remember_ half of it- so I won't try to. Suffice it to say that they were enthusiastic and thorough, and that at one point, I saw Mullet thrashing in his bonds and  _roaring_ , his face purple with fury.

My killing rage, my anger, all of it, vanished. There was nothing I could do. Everything was savage hurt and flashing stars and I couldn't move, couldn't do anything. My hands went limp, and I uncurled from my protective huddle.

When someone's iron-shod toe came whistling 'round in a kick at my unprotected head, the explosion of stars and blackness tore me out of the moment entirely.

**0.-0.-0**


	13. Chapter 13

They'd taken my claws.

I felt their loss like a hole in my heart- they were mine, they were  _Gehrich's,_ but I couldn't focus on it for long. Focusing on anything for any length of time was beyond me. My vision swam somewhere beyond my reach, and just when I managed to keep a thought in my head for more than three seconds, the sick pain behind my ear wore it down again.

I think I had a concussion.

I recognized the symptoms- the ringing in my ears, the blurred vision, and the vague feeling that I was either going to float off somewhere beyond the horizon or  _die vomiting._ It had happened to me a time or two during training- by accident mostly, but Dad never took it seriously. Said if I could still stand, I could still hold my stance, and that was it. Kept me on the monkeypoles for an hour and a half after I'd toppled off of them headfirst, and only let up when I'd cried myself sick.

They'd bound us both and tossed us into a wagon they'd appropriated from the Kashua Company caravan. That Mullet was still with me meant that they'd taken the wagon master's word for it that he was working with me.

_Or… Zieg. That was his name, right? Jeez, the least I owed him was to use his name._

When I muddled back to awareness again, we were passing under a thick stone arch, the sounds of Runners and smithing and soldiers on all sides. Zieg was silent, as always, but I felt how tense he was from where I was propped up against his back. When I shifted, he started, and craned his head back to look at me, or talk to me, or something, but then the pain came grinding back and I slipped over again, easy as breathing.

I woke up again, blearily, when they came to a halt, and then gasped when brutally strong arms hooked under my armpits and hauled me out of the wagon. It  _hurt._

I swore, and then I started cussing him out in every bad word Keys had ever taught me, my words gone all slurry, like I was drunk.

One of them cuffed me in the face in a businesslike fashion, and I went out again.

It seemed like hours later when I swam up to surface, and when I did, my thoughts were somewhat clearer.

"Whu…." I tried. Swallowed, my mouth feeling as gummy and foul as a wet boot. Tried again. "Where are we?"

I was tied back-to-back with Zieg, in a six-by-six stone cell that was as musty and dark as a tomb. The only light came from a shoe-box sized window up near the ceiling, barred with iron. The floor was covered in old, graying straw, and just sitting near it was already making my eyes water.

I didn't realize how tense the muscles in his back and shoulders were until some of it went out of him with an almost audible breath. He'd been  _rigid_. Tiny tremors still ran through him, like the skin of a Runner under a fly.

He didn't answer.  _That_ worried me.

My shirtfront was covered in blood, crusted over brown. I figured most of it was from my nose, which was either rebroken, or traumatized beyond belief.  _My face must look a fright_ , I thought.

Black gods, this was humiliating. One dead kid,  _one._ And I'd proceeded to lose my shit royally, and then fucked up any chance I ever had of seeing Gehrich again whole.

_Fuck._

My brain ticked frantically. We weren't dead. They were holding us somewhere, how long, I didn't know.

Well  _damn_ , this almost felt like something I could work with.

_The mortar- was it old, could I-?_

"How long was I out?" I asked, more to myself than to him. I tested the ropes idly. My circulation wasn't too bad; they weren't overly tight, maybe-

"All right," I murmured. "This is doable. We can get out of this no problem, we just gotta think. Did you see where we were headed? Are we in a city, or some kind of outpost, or-"

"Neet," he interrupted.

A fist in my gut that I hadn't even noticed till now seemed to unclench. He was all right. A little shook-up, yeah, but we could work with that.

Then the sheer frostiness of his tone hit.

_Riiiiiiight._

I forged on ahead anyways. "Oh," I said, brightly. "That makes sense, it's the closest town, right? Wouldn't make sense for 'em to haul us all the way back to Deningrad." I laughed, nervously. "'Cuz thatworked out great the last time, remember?"

I swear, I actually  _felt_ the drop in temperature resulting from  _that_ little remark.

He was pissed. I got that. Not that I blamed him. From the looks of things, he'd had a pretty sweet gig. Heck, he'd scored the job  _I'd_ wanted, back in the day, before the fiasco at the hiring tent. But then I'd flounced in with my claws and my pack of murdering bandits ( _after_ robbing him blind when all he'd ever done was try and help me out) and shot it all to hell for him. Couldn't blame him for ignoring me if I tried.

I've never dealt well with being ignored.

It would just make it a lot easier if I had someone working with me to get out, that was all.

 _We have to get out,_ a naked, panicking little voice said inside.  _We don't have time._

I sighed. Nudged him a little with my elbow, and talked carefully around my aching face. "Look, I'm sorry I lost you your job. I didn't know you were gonna be there. Not that my boss woulda let me skip out or anything, but I'm still sorry."

I  _hate_ apologizing. I've never been good at it. It's messy and guilty and  _gross._ But hey, he was still sore about it, and I needed his help if I was ever going to get out of here.

_Have to get out of here. You saw what they do to thieves. You saw the price on your head. Won't take 'em long to put two and two together, then you're done for. Gehrich's done for._

The thought was a sobering one. The look Dell had shot me was pure poison. He wasn't going to forget about this in a hurry. The only chance I had at fixing things was in somehow getting to him before Gehrich got there, and….

Well, something would occur to me. Something always did.

Best not to think about it.

My voice was too cheery, too bright as I nattered on, still testing my bindings. Trying to compensate for my companion's silence made me  _abysmally_ chipper, but I couldn't help it. It was either that or start panicking myself. "Your ropes as loose as mine? Work on 'em a bit, see what happens. Think if I get mine off, I can get a look at that wall. Think I might be able to do something about it. Are the guards close?"

More silence.

My head hurt terribly, especially the great soft spot near my temple where I'd been kicked. It made it hard to concentrate, so I suppose I must have missed the outraged set to his shoulders when I said, "Talk to me, please. Lemme know what's-"

"I have nothing to say to you."

His voice, flat and dispassionate and sort of rough from not speaking for long, cut through mine.

I faltered. "But-"

He continued. Acidly.

"I don't know you. I don't  _like_  you. You are a glib, lying thief, and you are utterly without honor."

He then added thoughtfully, as if that wasn't enough, "And you scream in your sleep."

The initial bubble-burst of relief that he  _could_ talk, that they hadn't hurt him too bad, filled the room with a slightly sour stink.

…  _Wait, what?"_

After a minute-

"I do  _not."_

I felt the inaudible snort go through him. "As you say."

Against my better wishes, I remembered him squashing me down in the dirt to keep the patrols from seeing us, and him with that chair leg in his hand and the lost look in his eyes, and felt, of all things,  _hurt._

Then his words caught up with me.

"When did I lie to you? I never lied to you." I said, voice getting considerably higher. "And  _real_ honorable letting the tar get beat out of you in some no-name bar when you're actually some kind of hot shot with a sword. What the fuck was  _that_ all about? I can't believe I used to feel  _bad_ for you."

"You said," he said deliberately, his voice  _dripping_ with contempt. "That you'd never heard of the Dell Gang."

"I hadn't!" I said hotly. "I didn't join up till after!" Then, snidely. "And I may be a bandit, but at least I'm not a  _suicidal basket case_. What the fuck are you pissed at  _me_ for, apparently _you're into that kind of thing_."

Faintly, I remembered that he was not having the best of days, and perhaps I ought to be a bit nicer to him, but fuck  _that._

"I saved you, remember," I added.

_Twice, actually, if you count not killing you._

… _You're welcome._

"You  _robbed_ me," he said, amazement coloring his voice.

"You  _didn't even notice_!" I shot back. "Admit it, you were there for at least another ten minutes getting misty-eyed over the architecture before you knew I was gone!"

Chilly silence followed.

" _I knew it_!"

"You took all of my money," he said in disbelief. "After I  _helped_ you."

A hot stab of guilt seared me at that, but I ignored that. I had gotten used to ignoring it. "So what, I was supposed to  _stay_ with you? We were gonna hang out, you were going to keep me company while I spent a week getting called a troublemaker, or a whore, or worse? I had to keep moving," I spat. "You kept looking like you were  _sleepwalking."_

He didn't respond. And then I realized that he wasn't even listening.

Pressed up against his back as I was, I couldn't help but notice the rapid hitch in his breath. Too rapid.

It dawned on me, slowly. "Are you…  _hyperventilating_?"

He seemed to think that the only suitable response to this was to stop breathing entirely.

Then, curtly, "No."

I looked around, took in the closeness of the walls, the gloom, and the overall tinyness of the window. "Are you claustrophobic, is that it? Look, if you'll just  _help_ me, I can get us-

"No," he said again, sharply. "I have been locked in small spaces before. I can bear it. I learned to bear it."

"Then what is it?" I pressed him. "Are you just freaked out about the horrible public deaths waiting outside for us? 'Cuz, uh, I'm not really planning on sticking around for that."

He hesitated. I felt the tremors going through him increase, infinitesimally. Then, grudgingly, "It's the stone."

I looked up, idly, ignoring the pain in my neck. Grey granite on all sides. Gloomy as a tomb. "Huh," I said. "I think I see what you mean."

"You  _can't,"_ he said, his voice going dark and desperate. "Being surrounded by stone, smothered by it. Like burying a fire in earth to put it out." His ropes strained against mine, his fists clenching.

I absorbed this.

….  _Okay, boy's fucking_ nuts, that same cold voice said to me.

' _Least you're in good company._

"Alright, listen," I said, somewhat gently. "I'll get us out of this. I got us out of the last fix we were in, right?"

His voice was muffled, as if he were speaking directly into his chest, but he'd stopped hyperventilating. " _I_ got us out of that, you just broke a chair over someone's head."

"Right!" I said, brightly. "See, that's because  _you're the thinking one._ Me, I'm the muscle. You can count on me."

"There is nothing to be gained from relying on you," he muttered.

"Okay, seriously?"I said, testily. "Knock it off. When I last talked to you, you weren't this lousy of a conversationalist.  _Which is saying something."_

"When I last spoke to you," he said shortly, "I still had  _money_."

Then, while I still felt the sting from his last remark, he said, sharply, "What did you do with my stone?"

I jerked my hands, trying to widen the slack I'd produced over the last couple of minutes. I ignored his hiss of pain when I did so. "What stone?" I said, testily. I was losing patience. So far, the only inclination he'd shown was to bitch at me and gibber over his stupid rock phobia, and absolutely none to help me bust out of here.

_The wall with the window. I can't hear anything outside, maybe it's empty out there…_

"There was a stone, a  _red stone_ , in my pocket, and you  _took it_ when we reached Deningrad. It was the only thing of value I possessed."

_The cold weight of it against my hip, turning it over in wonder in my palm, in that rancid bed in the city. The dead glitter of it in Hiram Dell's hand, winking with the firelight. His crooked teeth flashing in a smile as it disappeared into his coat._

I froze. "Er," I said.

His voice grew more furious than I'd ever heard it. " _Where is it?"_

"I don't have it!" I snapped. "Can you blame me? I didn't have a clue what it was, I couldn't sell it, and then it got lifted off me. My, um," I broke into a shifty sort of mutter. "My boss has it."

When he finally responded, his voice was flat with disbelief. "You gave. My stone. To the most wanted bandit in Mille Seseau."

Thoughtfully, I said, "Actually, I think he took it off me when I was unconscious. Which is actually kind of creepy when you think about it." I frowned at my lap. "I try not to think about it."

Zieg appeared to have descended into his own little world of cold disgust. "You know, to tell you the truth, he's actually kind of a lousy boss." I mused out loud. "Go figure."

 _Again, he brought the stake whistling down, and again I tore myself away and howled my disbelief into the dirt. Again I saw those terrified eyes in a freckled face, and again, I heard the_ noise.

I flinched.

Zieg ignored me. I could deal with that.

Taking in a deep breath, I tried to figure this out.

I wasn't the same girl he'd met in Furni. He wasn't the same man. Treating either of us like we were the people we'd been before…. Everything, was a mistake.

 _Oh_ please, I snarled, inwardly.  _It was a couple of weeks ago, you haven't changed_ that  _much!_

But, despite myself, I had.

Back then, I hadn't been fleeing anything more than-

_Yes, well. That._

But now….

I'd been fleeing the image of myself as a terrible person. The only difference between now and that was that now I  _knew_ I was a terrible person, and that there was no going back. Not for me. Back then, I'd been  _stupid,_ and so much younger than I felt now.

_Weird, how different seeing Gehrich's picture on the wall made everything._

It made me jumpy to think that there was someone around who remembered what I'd been like, like he knew what kind of person I was back home.

On some level, I wondered if I still would have done it. Jumped headfirst to Mullet's rescue, back in Furni.

It didn't bear thinking about too long.

Of course,  _he_ wasn't the same guy I'd met either. The guy I'd run into at the start of this whole, stupid journey had been quiet and decent company and a  _nobody._ Wouldn't say boo to a goose. Wouldn't say boo to a goose if said goose was  _repeatedly kicking him in the nuts._ I'd felt bad about ripping him off like that, but I never thought he'd be the kind to do anything about it.

Just thinking about the way he attacked me gave me the cold shivers. It was like finding out that the beat-up old mongrel down the street that everybody threw rocks out actually had a good set of teeth still on him, and a  _really good_ turn of speed.

He wasn't Mullet anymore. He wasn't somebody I could paste a stupid nickname to and waltz away. I was tied to him. _Literally._

But then again, if he wasn't Mullet, then I wasn't anybody. He'd never even so much as asked me my name. Like he'd never really known me, like he was some ghost just passing through my life.

That gnawed at me.

"I'm Claire, by the way," I offered, breaking the silence.

He went still. His voice was calmer. "I know," he said.

_How-?_

Oh yeah. Dell. Telling him to either kill him, or pack up and go home.

Jeez, it was so  _frustrating_ being back-to-back. I couldn't read his face for one, which, as I was beginning to note from the sheer  _deadpanness_ of his voice, was crucial in figuring out whether he was being sarcastic or not. Plus, this marked the longest I'd been this close to another human being without actually trying to kill them, and it made me nervous. I could feel him against my back, keeping such tight control over himself that it felt like he was going to explode any minute.

I had to fix this. I couldn't have him like this, not if I wanted to get some kind of plan underway. The people in charge were only going to leave us in here so long- we didn't have _time._

"You're Zieg, right?" I nattered on, still twisting uselessly at those goddamn ropes. "Hear 'em yelling it during the fight. Whatcha been up to since I last saw you? How'd you handle it after I ditched you?"

I felt him stiffen in indignation, but then he slumped. Drily, he said, "You left me in considerable straits."

I made a face at him. He didn't see it.

An extended silence, then he continued flatly, "I found a fighting ring. In the poorer districts. I earned back the coin you'd stolen. But then I decided that I would not stay, and hired myself out to the caravan. Then," he said, rolling his shoulders, "We met. Again." Darkly.

"You can  _do_ that?" I said, disbelief coloring my voice. "Why didn't  _I_  do that? How much money did you make?"

" _No."_

"No one should ever do that," he said tightly. "No one should  _ever_ have to do that."

That half mad, half panicky note had crept into his voice again, like it had done when he'd gotten too busy thinking about the stone walls. Boy was  _freaked._ I felt oddly like I ought to be backing slowly away with my hands where he could see them.

He took a deep breath. Struggled to maintain control. Tried again. "I did it because I had to. Because it was all I could do. But I won't. Not again. I told myself that once before, back before everything, but I thought I knew better now and that it wouldn't be the same, but it  _was._ It was  _exactly_ the same."

He was babbling. And I knew, then, that I had to get him out of here possibly even more than  _I_ needed to get out of here. He was going to crack right down the center if I didn't do something.

"No," he said, after a long moment.. "Pray that you are never forced to… perform, before a crowd. Where your only objective is to break the man in front of you for them to bet on."

_The shouting, howling crowd all around me, Bellamy looking equal parts determined and delighted as he brought his fist forward in a move that would break my nose._

The memory sobered me.

"You're good though," I offered. "Better than anybody with a sword I've faced so far. You must have made good money."

"I made… enough," he said. "But not enough to stay in the city. Eventually I hired myself out to the caravan you found me in."

I ignored the accusing note in his tone. "See, I tried that," I said. "Turns out they don't hire girls."

He ignored me.

I thought for a minute, then said wonderingly, "You could have  _mutilated_ those guys in Furni."

"I won't fight pointless battles," he said, icily. "I  _will not."_

Annoyed, I said, "Well,  _fine,_ but you would have been in deep shit without-"

"I am  _older_ than you," he said, that edge of hysteria creeping around the outskirts like wolves at the edge of the firelight. "Much,  _much_ older than you. And I have fought for no purpose and no honor for  _more years than I care to remember_."

He couldn't have sound more disapproving and condemning if he'd tried.

I let it sink in for a moment.

Then I realized that I didn't have to  _take_  that shit.

"Bullshit," I said finally. "I've  _crapped_ stuffolder'n you. You're, what, twenty two? Twenty three tops. Don't pull that grandpa crap, it won't fly."

He took in a deep, ragged breath. Let it out. "I am," he said, tonelessly. "Was. I don't know."

….  _Too_ weird.

My fingers plucked uselessly at the knots. Curse my stiff, abused hands, otherwise I might be making quicker work of this.

"Okay," I said. "That's… fine, I guess."  _Fucking_ nuts, repeated that small, resentful voice in my head.  _And what makes him think he can talk to me like that?_ "But you're gonna  _have_ to fight if we're ever getting out of here." I said. "I can get us out, but I don't think they're going to just let us  _walk_  out. You need to-"

"No," he said. " _Stop."_

I stopped, willing to let him speak. He drew in one shaky breath, then calmed himself. I felt it, through his back. "All that is going to happen is that they are going to come for us, and they will hang us. Publicly."

"I have  _sat here_ ," he continued, "In the dark, in the  _stone_ , wondering if they'd crushed your skull, if you were ever going to wake up. I have heard them through the bars, discussing what is to be done with us. You, they will make an example of. To send a message to that madman in the forest."

I wanted to interrupt, wanted to say that Dell wouldn't  _care_ what they did to be, but he continued. "You mocked me for failing to defend myself in that inn. I think that you are too young to understand the concept of a  _pointless battle_. There is nothing you can do. There is no one you can outwit, out-cheat, or out-maneuver." Bitterness flooded him. "You were dead from the first moment you stepped out of the trees."

It was the longest speech I'd heard out of him yet.

And it was pure poison.

I felt like I'd been stabbed in the gut.

That…  _tone._ That withering blend of disappointment and distaste. It made my guts freeze, made my eyes clench shut, made the hornets in my stomach rise up and fill my ears.

He sounded like Dad.

I'd had the snot beaten out of me only a couple of hours ago, mind. You don't come back from that too easily. There's baggage that comes from being overwhelmed like that. Bickering with Zieg had taken my mind off it some, but not nearly enough. I hurt. My tongue still tripped up half the time when I talked, and my shoulders were  _screaming_ from my arms being tied behind me for this long.  _He_ hadn't had the shit kicked out of him, and yet I was the only one talking about our options.

He'd given up.

Part of me fumed that we'd been doing nothing more than squeal and snap at each other like two dogs tied to the same stump. We had to get  _out_. We couldn't  _sit here_ anymore.

But he'd given up, damn him. All the fire had gone out of him, like he wasn't the same person as the one I'd fought by the roadside, or even the one who'd led me through the woods, all those weeks ago. He was just going to lie down and die and wouldn't say a word about it, like he was  _dead,_ like he was just waiting for the world to catch up with him so he could just  _die_ already _._

… I've never wanted to smack somebody so bad in my entire life.

"Fuck  _you,"_ I finally gasped, the hurt he'd caused me bleeding out through my voice.

And that's when I jerked forward and hurled myself to the side so that he hit the dirt, then started laying into him with my legs. Hard, savage kicks- not to cripple him, but to  _hurt_ him, cursing a blue streak the entire time.

Because I knewhim.

I may not have known him for very long, or really anything about him other than his name and his fucking stupid death wish, but I knew the fucker. He may not have wanted to fight anybody ever if it meant that it would come between him and a slow moldering death, but he'd shown  _every_ inclination of being perfectly willing to knock  _my_ teeth out. The whiny, horrible sad sack tied to me right now had nothing in common with the cool, canny swordsman I  _knew_ he was, and I aimed to pull him out kicking and screaming by any means necessary.

" _Fuck you_ ," I spat again. "So what, you're too pissed at me to help me fix this? You're just gonna lay down and wait for 'em to string you up? Stop  _embarrassing_ me."

All he did was duck his head and curl up his legs like a turtle retreating into its shell, and that infuriated me even more. I rocked as hard as I could, knowing that his ropes were biting into him as badly as they were me, and flung my head back until I was speaking directly into his ear.

"I have come  _too fucking far_ to be dragged down by some asshole like you," I raged. "And I don't care what I have to do to get you to help me but  _we. Are getting. Out of here."_

I punctuated each harsh phrase with a kick, thumping against his legs like hammer blows. If I could have reached my head around, I would have bitten his ear off. I was  _incensed._

When he moved, he moved quicker than anything. One minute I was still whaling weakly at him with my legs and hauling as hard as I could on the robes that tied our arms together, and the next I had the breath crushed out of me as he rolled and trapped me beneath him on the rancid straw. I thrashed as much as I could, still savagely trying to get at him, but to no avail. When he had me effectively pinned, he went still.

 _Heck,_ Gehrich _used to pull this kind of thing._

Not knowing if he was listening, knowing only that he was quiet and that I still had a  _chance,_ I tried again.

"You're going to help me," I said as calmly as I could, considering that he was a great deal heavier than me. "And you can be as angry at me as you want, if that's what helps, but don't  _do_ that thing where you play dead and wait for the world to stomp on you. That shit is  _unbearable._ I'll be as obnoxious as you need to be, but you are going to grow a pair and we're getting the fuck out of here _."_

I drew a breath, and forged ahead. "Zieg. I fucked you over, I know that. I  _am_ a liar, and a thief, and all that, and on top of that, I am a pretty lousy human being. But I am going to get you out of here, out of the stone, and we're going to find Dell and get your rock back  _and_ save my stupid cousin from getting his throat cut, and I'm going to get my act together and everything will be turn out fine."

He was still listening.

I swallowed. "I'm sorry. I don't have it in me to give up. I probably should have a long time ago, I just can't. I have to keep running, and hope that I'll figure something out eventually. But I won't leave you here. I promise."

It was all I could say. I'm not that eloquent. I didn't have any good speeches in me.

After a long, long time (wherein it eventually got so hard to breathe that I was reduced to wheezing like a winded Runner), he rolled off of me. Awkwardly, we sat back-to-back once more while I tried to get my breath back, and tried to manage the surge of pain from my injuries.

When he spoke again, he sounded slightly contrite.

"I apologize," he said. "It has been… a long time, since I have fought for anything. I had thought..." He trailed off, and Soa help me, he sounded so lost. But then he regained himself, and said, "I was foolish."

I coughed. Regained my composure.

Roughly, I said, "No harm done, right? Now give me some help on these ropes."

He sighed. "Claire. Even if we get untied, there is nowhere to go. The door is locked, and solid oak, and the window is too small to get through, even if we somehow managed to remove the bars. It's futile."

For a moment, as my vision tinged slightly red, I wondered if it was possible to choke someone with your  _mind._

"I'm going to  _punch through the wall,_ dumbass," I snarled.

A contemplative silence followed.

Then-

"Oh." he said.

**0.-0.-0**


	14. Chapter 14

 

_Then I seemed_  
 _to walk into the darkroom of my mind's own eye_  
 _and saw the self I'd always felt inside but never known:_  
 _a complicated, unsmiling creature with a fear-tinged face._  
 _Around her the aura of something golden was fighting_  
 _with whip-like straps of something black. She was staring_  
 _straight into the future, trying to get out, trying_  
 _to conceal her fear, completely unaware_  
 _of how it glistened and glowed, and of how_  
 _irresistible it was for the artist to spread it_  
 _across the canvas so that everyone could see._

_\- Kate Daniels "When I was the muse"_

**0.-0.-0**

Dad was a terrible teacher and that was all there was too it. When he wasn't shouting, he was deliberately vague. Kept saying that if I had the makings of a Rouge Warrior, I'd  _know_ what to do.

Apparently this also applied to knocking down a stone wall twice my height.

He'd sent Lotta home. Not mean, just cold as always. She wasn't his disciple, not by a long shot, and what's worse, he made sure she knew it. She'd gone through the same phase I'd had, where she woulda done  _anything_ to get his approval, but she'd wised up quicker'n I ever had that she wasn't ever going to get it. The number of people Haschel respected could be counted on one hand, and they were all either geezers like Keys, or buried out in the jungle graveyard.  _Not_ a pair of greasy, smart mouthed kids.

"Pray," he barked at me.

I ducked my head down.

It took some doing trying to remember all of it, but I managed. After a while, I let the words rise up like bright fish from deep, murky waters, calling on the War God for his favor. His name was long and jagged and had too many jangling syllables, but I said all, and said the long litany that followed.  _I am your instrument, I am your strength,_ all that jazz. He watched me the whole time, grim as a hawk, the sunlight gleaming on his oiled black hair.

His curse from all those months ago had come true, in a way. Eight months of pounding wood, pounding rock, and pounding on Lotta when he gave the order had broken my hands down and built them back from the ground up, harder, denser, and uglier. I'd pushed myself harder and longer than I ever had before, and was slowly growing father and farther apart from my community. Dad kept me at it all day, every day. Didn't see Lotta, except in training. Didn't see Keys, except for when he felt well enough to shuffle his way down to the platform and watch me train, his face unreadable as he sipped silently from a bottle of whatever nasty tea he was trying out this week to keep him walking. His back was giving him hell these days, what with the rains coming on, some days he could hardly-

"Enough," said Dad. "Approach the wall."

Without speaking, I dropped my hands from their prayer hold and stepped up to the mortared wall, so old that scraps of grass were growing out of the cracks.

I'd learned not to talk. He was a big believer in that old, The Student Listens and The Master Speaks bullshit, and got real ratty if I opened my mouth without his say-so. Plus, whenever I talked, I tended to get flustered and tongue-tied and always screw up royal and call him Dad instead of Master and then he'd flay strips off me. And teaching me not to talk is a lesson a  _long_ time in the making, lemme tell you.

He watched me, and waited long past the point that would have marked a reasonable amount of time in which to start talking, then began, curtly.

"This is the base of our Art. Not speed. Not finesse. Power."

He gestured to the wall. "If you have it in you, you can do it. Focus. Call on the War God. Keep the desire locked in your chest, and only bring it out for one swift  _flash,"_ he said, thumping one fist into his palm. "And if you are calm, and if you are worthy, the wall will crumble before you."

My skepticism bled into my face as I craned my neck back to take in the wall before me. It was a foot thick at least, I could see that. Part of an ancient fort that had been here since before our people had moved to these islands. The stone was smooth and sunbaked, and I knew that all my practice with boards and bricks and my poor, broken hands hadn't prepared me for something as huge as this.

Without thinking, it slipped out. "You're nuts," I blurted.

"Quiet," he snapped, his anger roiling just beneath the surface, ready to step out and scald me at any moment.

A kick of warning resounded in my chest. I tried another tactic. "Okay, I take that back. But. Um. I just,  _focus?_ And think real hard, and then  _Wap-ow?"_

The accompanying gesture I made was lost on him. I think. I couldn't tell.

He looked a little bit like he was going to grab me by the neck and brain me against the wall himself.

I swallowed. Gathered myself in, and found my composure.

"Please," I said, "I don't get it. Also, I'm really getting tired of just going ahead and listening to you and breaking my-"

"Listening to me too much has never been one of your problems," he said, crossing his arms behind him.

That smarted. My old anger flared up, bright as a lit match, but I wasn't stupid enough to let it show just yet. That way lay endless laps around the island and enough pushups to keep me occupied till I was forty. I pushed it down, but it felt like forcing a fishhook right back into the thumb it was snagged into.

"This is a test," he continued, his voice booming out in that harsh baritone. "This is not something you can pass by virtue of being quick, or precise, or for  _talking back."_

"I'm not talking back," I said, gulping, my voice getting all shaky. "I just don't understand."

"It is a test of  _faith_ ," he barked at me.

I flinched. For months he'd been trying to stick a saddle on me that I  _still_ thought ought to be sent back to manufacturers, and every time he crammed it down on my back and tightened the straps, not caring how much it rubbed me raw or choked the breath out of me, I felt like hurting something. This need to hurt something, this need to  _hit_  had gotten me this far.

Maybe it would get me one step further.

He'd gone silent. Waiting. Disapproval rolling out of him in waves, communicated through every inch of his short, stocky, sinewy body. And me, well, I took a step back and studied the wall, and thought hard.

Concentration, and faith in the War God, that's all it took.

Silently, I sent up another plea. Not the bound and rote ones Dad had pounded into my head, caged in terms so old they creaked.  _Please,_ I thought.  _I'm not one of the Founders. I don't have a rope of pirate skulls hanging from my front porch, and I've never killed anybody. I'm not even sure I_ could.  _But I'm calling on you now because I need the help, I surely do, and if you could find it in your self, Mr. um, Nagara- nagra… hang on, I had this a second ago…_

I frowned. Closed my eyes, as my father watched sharply. I took a breath.

_I am a trueborn disciple of the Rouge Art, and I entreat you._

" _Strike_." said my father, his voice black as I'd ever heard it.

My face screwed up. And I felt it, that spark deep down inside myself, the one that watched and waited and trembled whenever my father spoke to me because I was  _worth more than this, damnit_ and I grabbed hold of it. There was a buzzing in my limbs that I'd never felt before, and I felt the wall  _pulling_ at me, like it was urging me forward to give it a try. I roped my anger, and fed it loop by loop to that small, stubborn spark in me, and as it gained strength it spread, running down both arms to pool in my fists, aching with unreleased electricity. Concentration and faith, he'd said, but this wasn't it. This was power, and this was fury, and this was  _will._

I inhaled deeply through my nose, and rolled my neck. And then, forgetting every stone or board I'd ever punched that had repelled me and broken my hands, I curled both my arms in towards my core, and released them with a shout that sent the birds above us screaming out of the trees.

My father stayed silent as my vision cleared, and when I finally shook the sweat out of my eyes and wiped my forehead with one trembling hand, I got a look at what I'd managed to do to the wall.

The place where I'd struck was sunken in and crumbling. The wall itself hadn't fallen, but there was a long, ugly crack running the length of it, and I bet a good, solid shove would send the whole thing tumbling.

_Holy shit I almost did it._

I laughed. My voice was high and exhausted, but so relieved. I mean, yeah, I hadn't exactly reduced the thing to brick dust and bad memories, but for somebody who'd been fairly convinced that they were gonna reduce their hands to bone jelly not too long ago, this was  _good._

I remembered myself with a flash, and my mouth snapped shut just as quickly. Dad tended to look down on that sort of thing.

When I looked at him, he still radiated disapproval, and it reflected in his voice when he spoke. "Weak," he said. "Sloppy."

It stung, but that dissolved into warm bafflement when he gave a short, sharp nod and said, "But a good first attempt.  _Not,_ " he continued warningly, "That I will allow such things in the future."

My heart leapt. Despite myself, it leapt. That it could hurt this much to pull that much praise out of him was a terrible, terrible thing. Having gone so long without one word of it from him, I'd told myself that I didn't want it, didn't need it, and it didn't  _matter_ because I wasn't ever going to get it.

And then my Dad, damn him, proved me wrong by telling me that I hadn't done that bad a job after all.

Somehow, it hurt even worse than usual to know that it wasn't that he was incapable of giving praise, just that I was so often largely incapable of  _earning it._

And damn him to the worst level of hell for giving me thirty pushups when I gave up and whooped to the skies anyways.

 

 

 

**0.-0.-0**

On second thought, I was actually kind of annoyed at how quickly Zieg got us out of those ropes. Here I'd been tugging at the fucking things for a good half hour while he babbled nonsense to no good effect, and all it seemed to take him was a couple of minutes of fierce concentration and  _hey presto_. It was almost enough to make me think he was a regular jailbird.

When we finally came free, and hauled ourselves stiffly and gracelessly to our feet, I finally got a good look at him.

His hair was ruffled, and there were shadows under his eyes, the sort that came from long nights with no sleep. I squinted, and saw that not all the shadows were from lack of sleep- they were bruises, high across his face, and I shivered, because I remembered that when they'd had me down on the ground and had been kicking me for all they were worth, he'd shouted and thrashed and told them to  _stop._

They must've hit him. To get him to shut up. And to do that, they probably had to quit hitting me first.

It made me uncomfortable, remembering, so I let it go. But the knowledge stayed with me, that even if he thought me dishonorable, and the worst kind of scum on earth, he still wouldn't stand for my ugly, violent, pointless death.

 _Dell woulda,_ said a small voice.

I grinned at him, knowing I looked more of a fright myself. My teeth felt loose, my nose was a crusted red ruin, and the bruise running along the side of my face had to be  _spectacular,_ but I felt like a million goddamn gold bits. We were getting out. We were bustin' our way out, and all that waited for us was fresh air and sunshine and a good long stretch of road to run on.  _Finally_.

The strain of confinement, and his own obvious unease with the closeness of the stone had Zieg look fairly  _grey_ by this point. He stood tense. He looked like some grizzled old cannibal sailor found adrift at sea six months after a shipwreck, about five minutes away from gnawing one of his own legs off.

He looked absolutely fucking  _nuts,_ and it was either get him the hell out of here soon, or watch him crumble before my eyes like a sandcastle at high tide.

He jumped when I poked him in the chest, then his eyes narrowed. I followed his line of sight, and saw that he was staring down at my offending finger with something like disbelief.

I grinned at him. Blood still in my teeth and everything. "Relax," I drawled, fit to shame any Serdian. "You're with a professional."

He had the gall to look indignant, but I shouldered past him to the prison wall, ignoring my aches and pains as best I could. Soa above, I felt  _smug._ He mighta dragged me out of that scrape in Furni, and he might have looked after my sorry self all the way to Deningrad, but he was depending on  _me_ now, and hot damn, that felt good. Nothing good came of it when you let men lead the way for too long, I knew that for  _damn_ sure by this point.

I flattened my hands against the wall, getting a sense for it.

He watched me, cautiously, that winter starved look still in his eyes. He still looked nuts, but it was a different kind. This was the arsonist's crazy, the kind that's shuffling around in its pockets for a box of matches and looking for some likely buildings to torch. It wasn't the haunted despair from earlier- still just as unnerving, mind, but waaay more preferable. I could work with this.

 _Soa's tits, girl, you ain't been around him ten minutes and you're already turning into that one nurse with the lamp_ , I said snidely to myself.  _No wonder Dell had you playing bandit so quick, you change your tune_ fast.

"We're going to have to move quick once I bust this down," I said somewhat distractedly as I hooked my fingertips on the window ledge and hauled myself up to get a look at both the thickness of the wall, and what lay outside. "They're going to hear this."

It looked liked it led out to an abandoned courtyard, dusty and full of weeds. I bunched my muscles, trying to get up higher and see, when he lunged and wrapped an arm around my waist, hauling me down. I squawked and flailed, but then he dumped me on the ground and sat down at my back again, reaching back and clutching my wrists in his hands with white-knuckled strength.

 _Okay, wait, we just_ did  _this, what-_

First I heard them coming. Jangling with their weight of their chain mail, swift and precise. Then I saw them.

The officer, I remembered him. From the failed robbery, on his big bay Runner with the blue Divine Tree emblazoned across the armor on its haunches. He carried his plumed helmet under his arm, all shining silver and blue varnish.

The man accompanying him I had a harder time placing. But his eyes fixed on me almost immediately, and narrowed, and I  _remembered_ that look, and jeez, where-?

"Oh, hey!" I said brightly, ignoring how Zieg froze at my back, his chin pinned to his chest. "The Tannery Row fire, right?"

It was the same man who'd led the troop to bring down Dell, back in Deningrad, the one I'd laid low in the first ten minutes.

 _You didn't kill him!_ I thought giddily.  _This is great!_

He turned to his superior, ignoring me. "This is the girl," he said, clipped and professional. "She tore through a squad sent to investigate a fire in the lower city, and escaped with the group we're targeting. With," he continued acidly, "Ten thousand gold marks gathered as taxes this year."

" _That was_ you _?"_ said Zieg in the world's smallest, most frozen voice, meant only for my ears.

"I can explain!" I shot back in an equally furious whisper.

"Hn," said the commanding officer, looking at the pair of us without any real interest. "And the man, he also works for Dell?"

"Based on testimony given from the last attack, yes, sir," said the captain.

I figured this was Zieg's turn to protest his own lack of involvement in this entire stupid debacle, but he kept his head down and locked to his chest and said nothing. His only reaction was to tighten his grip on my hands by the smallest fragment, bidding me to keep still.

I hated it when he didn't defend himself. I really, really did. But I took the hint.

 _Go away,_ I said silently in my head.  _Make your promises of a horrible, horrible death, and then fuck off so we can get_ out!

"Hmn, yes," said the officer mildly. "Let the hangman know he's to add a second noose. We're mounting their heads on the city gates."

"Done, sir," said the captain from Deningrad, staring at me with a sort of cold triumph.

 _Okay, that was just uncalled for,_ I thought, but the pair of them turned on their heels and walked out just as perfunctorily as they'd arrived.

When the sounds of their exit faded away completely from our ears, Zieg let out a breath I hadn't known he was holding, and released my hands.

I lurched forward, rubbing my wrists. Between him squeezing the life out of them and the ropes rubbing them raw, they were going to be red and sore for a long time coming.

I missed my claws. It was like rubbing a missing tooth with my tongue just thinking about them.

Warily, Zieg rose to his feet, and then surprised me by bending down and lifting me up with him.

He looked at me.

I fidgeted. "What?" I demanded. "They're gone." Then, quickly, "Don't listen to 'em. I meant what I said. I'm getting us out of here."

His voice was flat. "You paralyzed an entire city."

My eyebrows rose, as my lips quirked. "Just by knocking that one asshole down? Didn't know he was that important."

"The fire spread," he said, looking at me strangely. "Didn't you know?"

I hadn't.

I'd thought-

No. This wasn't the time for this.

My face twisted angrily as I rubbed one forearm. "No, I didn't, but we don't have  _time_ , since we're getting  _hanged_ in about twenty minutes, remember that?"

He studied me, his face incredulous, but then, wisely, let it drop.

I refused to let the relief show on my face. Turning, I went back to the wall.

I let my breath out with a whoosh, shaking my hands out. Enough of this bullshit. Enough of what I may or may not have done, enough of death sentences, enough of all this  _guilt_ that I should be feeling but refused to.

Because now, as ever, all it came down to was me, and something I aimed to  _hit._

My eyes drifted closed.

I didn't have the time or the inclination to get as angry as it usually took me to reach the bulk of my skill. There were no men with swords or puppy-limbed Bellamys to jerk me out of my center and access the hot darkness that I used to fuel my attacks.

…. Of course it didn't hurt that I was tired, dirty, exhausted, and that my ears were still ringing from a concussion I ought to eventually get looked at.

 _Besides_ that.

All I could do was think back to my training, remember the words, and pray.

I breathed in, and let it fade away. Zieg behind me, watching me soberly as if he still wasn't quite sure that I was serious. The sting of hay in my nostrils, and the stronger, older reek of wet stone and the lye they used to scrub the last set of prisoners off of the walls. I let my own pain shrink down to the edge of my awareness, ever-present and watchful.

_Black God of a thousand isles…_

I don't know why I kept this up. Maybe it was tradition, maybe it was just because I was never that good at thinking outside the box, but my Dad had carved these lines deeper than probably even he knew. And I may lack imagination, but I  _knew_ I was going to need all the help I could get in this.

When it came, it felt like an egg trickling down the back of my head. But warm. Warm like boiling honey, washing down my back and spreading down my arms, and yes,  _there_ was my anger, there was my outrage, there was my fear, lying there all coiled up together like snakes.

 _When you strike,_ my father had said,  _your fists ache, and your heart aches, and you must_ never  _forget it,_ and I hadn't. All I had left in me these days was ache, in my heart, in my hands, and in the cold, screaming nowhere somewhere over my shoulder, barreling down on me, always one step away, and it would swallow me without a thought if I dared to glance back  _once_.

_So the fire had spread. So the world had changed for the worse, just because of me. I was used to that. I could deal. If all I had was darkness and death in me, then I would use it as best I could._

When I struck, I didn't even feel it.

Awareness crept back to me slowly, after a fashion. I was standing, lurched forward on one leg, my arms resting at my heaving sides.

My eyes fluttered open, then blinked at the sudden influx of light.

Behind me, Zieg was silent. After a moment, he said, "….Interesting."

I'd broken through the wall. Some of the chunks were all the way on the other side of the empty courtyard.

I swayed, but caught myself. Reached up and dug my fingers in my hair until I could feel the pull on my scalp. Breathed deep.

"Right," I said, barely recognizing the sound of my own voice. "They heard that for sure."

When I took a step, I stumbled. Only kept my balance because Zieg's hand shot out and clutched my shoulder, steadying me.

"I'll lead," he said, his voice crisp, and it had a note in it of something I couldn't name. I looked up, cautiously, curious as to what I'd find.

The sight of them fairly took my breath away. He was fairly bouncing on his toes, all of his energy suddenly directed  _outward,_ not eating away at him inside, like a dog that's swallowed a piece of broken glass. He had this wild, crazed look in his blue eyes, and I saw the last vestiges of his self-control shred away like cheap cotton batting in the overpowering face of his relief.

He stepped out of the stone and into the sunlight, and oh, how he suddenly  _shone_.

His voice jerked me out of my sudden dizzy contemplation. "Let them hear," he said, looking around with something like satisfaction. "You were right. It's time we left."

 _Heh,_ I thought with some smugness.  _Thought he said you wouldn't fight to save yourself. Look at him. He's like a kid on his birthday. Knew the fucker was lying._

He took off at a long, loping jog, just like when he'd led me through the labyrinth of streets and canals in Furni. Sounds of shouting and commotion were already raising in the buildings and alleyways beyond- they'd heard all right, and they were coming to investigate.

I followed at a somewhat stiffer gait, then jerked to a stop. " _Wait,"_ I said, and he stuttered to a halt, his eyes wide and guileless, the need to escape still pure and raging within them.

I steadied myself on the wall next to me, and chose my words carefully. "Do you remember the layout, from when we were brought in? See anything that looked like an office, where the commander might be?"

His face sobered. "Why?" he said shortly, and mildly suspiciously.

I quirked a grin I didn't feel, and held my battered and split hands up. "Need my claws back," I murmured. "I think there's a good chance they'd keep our stuff locked up there. Figured we could scrounge you up a sword too, yeah?"

He surprised me with a short jerk of a nod, looking at me straight in the eye. "Yes," he said. "I remember. I can lead you there."

Then, much more cautiously, he said, "It will make us very visible, however. It might make it more difficult to extract ourselves."

I shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Long as I get those claws, I can handle anything they throw at us."

He grinned. Tight and approving. I couldn't believe that it  _still_ managed to surprise me whenever he smiled. Boy was so grim and doom-obsessed the other ninety percent of the time, it always came as something of a shock.

 _Plus he ain't half_ bad  _when he smiles,_ said a terrible, perverse side of my head.  _'Least not completely-_

Okay,  _ew,_ moving on, we were escaping from prison, and these thoughts were  _stupid_.

He turned away, appearing deep in thought. Then he waved a hand at me and set off at a jog in a slightly different direction, low and intent

The only warning I had was when he rounded a corner, checked himself, and slipped backwards as smoothly as an oil slick. Weaponless, he was obviously letting me take point. I recognized the thinking behind the move in a flash, and rocketed up behind him to-

The guards were out of breath, and one of them still had shaving soap under one ear. I nailed him first, fast and vicious, then whirled to the side to bring my foot flying up to meet with the chin of the next. His teeth met with a  _crack,_ and then his eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped like a sack of potatoes.

Zieg gave me a bright, distracted look, the barest of smiles still clawing at the edges of his face, and set off again.

We tore through the back alleys of the fort, trotting down abandoned corridors and empty courtyards while all around us the sounds of pursuit intensified. We had to be close to the center of the city- I could hear the clatter of wagons outside, the million myriad sounds of a living city, but  _loud,_ louder than Deningrad could ever hope to be.

He stopped, suddenly, and his arm snaked backwards to snatch at my upper arm, stilling me. We were pausing by the corner of a large stone building, a stable, if the stink of Runners and the sound of their squealing whinnies was any indication.

He nodded somewhere out there. "That's the Commander's office," he said distantly, as if remembering our bumping, painful wagon ride here, his eyes fixed on a small, tidy wooden building nearest to the front gates of the fort. Beyond the gates, tall wooden buildings stretched out in all directions, the muddy streets packed with men and women and Runners, all making enough noise to wake the dead.

 _We could lose ourselves in there easily,_ I thought,  _once we made our break._

"Right," I said. "Follow me. Don't do anything stupid."

He snorted. Gave me a flat look that said quite clearly,  _I doubt it._

We fairly  _scuttled_ across the short, painfully open expanse of packed dirt and dead grass that lead to the small wooden building.  _They're gonna see us they're gonna see us they're goin to fucking_ see us, I babbled inside my head, but all too soon we were rattling up the stairs leading to the front door and I was drawing my leg up and cannonballing it out in a door busting kick.

The door fell in, revealing the wide, terrified face of what looked like your average, everyday clerk, but then he reacted quicker than I ever would have given him credit for, and held out a clenched fist that… glowed….red?

He threw something.

 _Bought magic,_ I thought in slow motion.  _Shit, what-_

Zieg moved fast. One minute I was staring a hot, charred death in the face, and the next I was stumbling to the side as he punted me out of the way with one hip, throwing his arm out to protect me as he took the full blast of the Burn-Out himself.

Stumbling back from the sudden, blinding wash of flames, I covered my eyes with one hand, my gut clenching like a fist while the fire roared.

 _Stupid._ I thought, panicking and flinching back from the searing heat.  _He's dead, I'm dead, ruined, charred black, like-_

The flames cleared. They swept around him like wings, ruffling his hair like a playful, orange-yellow breeze, leaving him unharmed.

_What?_

The clerk gaped. Zieg  _laughed._ This weird little bark of a laugh. Then he pounced.

The sequence of events that followed was slightly….  _fuzzy._ Furious movement, that was all the impression I got out of it. And Zieg certainly didn't kill the poor fucker, but neither did he polish off those old honorable swordsman moves and give him a fighting chance. Really, all he did was grab him by the scruff of the neck, ignored his flailing, hustled him into an empty arms locker and wedged the door shut with the officer's chair. Neat as you please.

He turned then, looking around idly, ignoring my openmouthed  _confusion_ as grandly as any lord. "Are you sure the Commander would have brought our weapons here?" he said, turning to me.

I swallowed my amazement, resolving to bring it up at another time. Wondered briefly how I could even put it into words.  _So, um, get set on fire much?_ was probably right out.

"Yours _,_ no," I said scornfully, coming back to myself. "But all you had to do was listen to him. He's sticking our  _heads_ on the wall. Sounds to me like a guy who likes his trophies."

He nodded, then, like me, started tearing the place apart.

I poked around for a bit, my lip caught in my teeth, thinking furiously. Then I saw a smart-looking, gleaming chest right underneath the Commander's desk and thought,  _Bingo._

It was a simple one-two- _crunch_ to get it open. My feet were still good enough for that. And there, in the splintered wreckage of top of the chest, I saw rusty pig-iron and dark, scuffed leather and a note rang in my chest so sweet and pure that it ached like a phantom limb.

My fingers fumbled fishing them out, and were generally too useless and too stubby to put my claws on with any measure of grace, but when I got them on and tightened the straps and felt the weight of all that leather and brutal metal and the little click of the last piece of a puzzle piece going in-  _yes,_ I did sniffle a bit, fuck you, shut up.

I wasn't helpless anymore, that was all.

I was hurt and tired and absolutely filthy, but I had what I needed.

I stood straighter. Felt the weight of my skill and my tired, misdirected anger settle on me again like a cloak. The buzz of hornets, like shaking a paper bag full of marbles, set up a constant, living hum inside my bones once more.

A noise from behind me. I turned and saw that Zieg had found a likely-looking sword hanging on the wall, and a belt to go with it. He hooked it on his waist, his face looking so  _inward,_ his brow furrowed the smallest bit, and when he finally got it fastened and stood with the weight of it hanging off his hip again, he relaxed. The tension melted out of it, as if, like me, he was complete.

It didn't take the bruises off his face. Or the slight hunch out of his shoulders, like a kicked dog with nowhere to go. It didn't make him transform into someone younger and healthier and with a better outlook on life- but like me, it just made him look like he'd be able to  _deal_.

That gave me hope, I think. More than his wild-eyed relief to be out of jail. That he could sober up and hold a sword and work  _with_ me to get us out of here. It helped.

The door burst open again.

A guard, in full chain mail and blue tabard of the Divine Tree. His sword was drawn, tense, and it didn't take him more than a second to jerk it forward and rush Zieg.

Something in me snapped.

Zieg didn't have time to react-  _wouldn't_ have, all he woulda been able to do was get spitted, but I shoved him aside without a moment's thought, and brought my arm up to block the sword. The guard grunted, then coughed in pain as I slammed one fist straight through his chain mail to bury my claws bloody in his chest. I jerked my fist back, tearing the claws free, not thinking, not feeling, just  _moving,_ and then when he clutched a gauntleted hand to his chest and listed forward, I sent him sprawling backwards with a kick to the chest that likely broke his ribs, from the crack they made.

Everything had gone all hot,  _burning_ , like the Burn-Out that Zieg had shoved me out of the way from, and it was like I was watching this all happen from some small, dark place just behind my eyes. Some force I couldn't put a name to, the same raw, barely channeled strength I'd used to break the wall down was powering my muscles now- I couldn't have stopped it if I'd tried.

He twisted as he fell, landing with a clatter of chain links on his stomach on the wooden floorboards. I took a quick step to the side and drew my knee up to bring my boot savagely down on his unprotected spine. A move that would kill him.

My teeth drew back in a berserker's grin. And then, Soa help me, I started to bring my foot down.

An arm, very strong, with a green sleeve that smelled like woodsmoke and old hay and prison, locked around my throat, hauling me back against a firm, implacable body that paid no attention to how much I jerked and snarled. "No," he ground out, anchoring me. " _You will not_."

The fight went out of me.

_What….Where was I-?_

When I went still, he waited a moment, holding his breath, and then let me go. Quickly, and then stepped back. When I stood, staring at the groaning, largely insensate man on the ground before me that I'd nearly killed without a thought, only his voice broke me out of it.

"You," he started, then stopped. When I looked up, my eyes frightened and large and  _wondering,_ he nervously looked away, and fixed his gaze determinedly on the floorboards. "You would not. Before. I think." he said, his face so neutral and closed that you could hardly suspect him of interfering with my own self-destruction.

He remembered. Remembered a bloody clearing with a dead guard bleeding out on the ground and a madman ordering me to kill and I  _would not._

I was shocked that he did, actually. Shocked that he'd stop me from giving in like that, when all I was was a dirty, life-destroying thief who'd dragged him into a mess he didn't deserve.

Shit, I'd forgotten it, even.

I breathed in hard, feeling the old panic coming on.  _I almost gave in, I_ almost- when he broke in again, taking my shoulder in one hand. "We're leaving now," he said. "We got what we came for."

"Yeah," I said, my voice coming from so far away that it sounded underwater. Stared in dizzy contemplation at the blood dripping from my claws onto the floor.

" _Claire,"_ he said, shaking me. "We're leaving."

I flinched, then shrugged free. "Yeah, I heard. No problem. Lead the way."

He gave me a hard, measuring look, then swept past me and stepped over the downed guard without a look downward, dragging me determinedly by the wrist after him.

It was ten yards to the gate. Ten yards of shouting, gibbering chaos, with guards rushing in on mounted Runners, shouting to high Soa, and guards rushing out yelling something about explosives and blast radiuses, and we got swept up in the middle of it without anyone saying so much as a word. Zieg hustled me along beside him the whole time, me stumbling and muttering the same old litany of stark terror and inescapable grief, and when even that didn't seem to be enough, he opened his coat and shoved me in next to his side and pulled it over my head as we marched, like some ridiculous mother hen with the world's most retarded baby chick.

Thus, I didn't see much of anything as we simply walked out of the fort.

 

 

 

**0.-0.-0**


	15. Chapter 15

> " _War is Surrealism without art._  
> 
> 
> _War is not won but survived._
> 
> _War is two wrongs obliterating right._
> 
> _War is the abandonment of reason in the name of principle._
> 
> _War is sacrifice for an ideal._
> 
> _War is the desecration of the real._
> 
> _War is unjust even when it is just._
> 
> _War is the revenge of the dead on the living. "_
> 
> _-Charles Bernstein, "War Stories"_

**0.-0.-0**

I couldn't see where I was going.

I wasn't crying- I  _wasn't-_ but my sight was smeared red and grey and my eyes felt as gritty as the bottom of a crick bed. I made to swipe at them with the heel of my palm until I remembered that I was still wearing my claws and narrowly avoided gashing myself on the forehead.

There was blood soaked into the leather and iron covering my knuckles, and only Zieg's tight grip on my other wrist kept me from sinking to my knees and  _howling._

He hauled me along with him, like a recalcitrant puppy, not stopping, not slowing, just putting one foot after the other like he had all those weeks ago in Furni. I stumbled, slithering on the ankle-deep mud that covered the streets, the smell of fresh-cut lumber and wood smoke stinging in my nostrils.

He didn't let go. His grip tightened until it hurt.

We were in the center of the city. I couldn't remember how we'd gotten there- we couldn't have  _walked_ there, but of course we had. No one had caught us. There were no sounds of pursuit behind us, but that was only because of the roaring city all around us. Deningrad didn't even come  _close._

He walked swift and sure, and he didn't run, like I would have done. Running would have lead to us getting snatched up again for certain. He still had me clutched to his side, his arm iron hard, his green coat hauled over the top of my head. I smelled him. Sweat and the acrid tang of the magic that had failed to kill him. I tried to cling to that, even when the edges of my thoughts clawed my attention away with every step I took.

_Black Gods help me I never I didn't it wasn't my fault he never shoulda I didn't mean it please help me I'm sorry I'm sorry sorry-_

"Quiet." he murmured, terse and disapproving, and then I realized that I'd been saying it out loud, and the shame I felt then was enough to block out the sun.

My hands hurt. Bone-deep and  _profoundly_.

I'd pushed it too far taking out that wall, and the impact bruising was going to be brutal. They hurt, and the hurt moaned all the way up my arms and there wasn't anybody to wrap 'em up and ruffle my hair and call me stupid, no gruff old Uncle to make this better for me, and I couldn't deal with this now, couldn't-

_I would have killed him. I would have done it. It's the only thing I could think to do. It's all I could ever do._

My thoughts were all run through with spider-webbed cracks, like a mirror that's been stomped on. Dell was in my ears, curse him. Smiling long and wicked, like a cat that's picked the lock and eaten the canary and them stuck around some just to see your face when you noticed it was missing.

_You're born to hurt things._

_You get into it. There's nothing. No you, no enemy, just this huge, whirlwind ball of wantin' to_ hurt _somebody."_

I flinched, woulda shied away completely if not for the arm locked around my shoulders.

It hadn't been like this last time. The last time I'd cracked like this, I'd been sprawled on a wagon bed, hurtling through the night, blood seeping through my fingers as I clutched at my ribs. This wasn't a pell-mell dash through the city after busting a chair over some asshole's head either, this was me, blindly stumbling away from yet another bloodstained mistake, my eyes burning.

He wouldn't let go

_Stupid,_ I thought, weak and mean.  _I bet I didn't even mean it when I said I'd get you out of there._ Stupid.

Without pausing to think, he made a sharp turn, ducking into an alleyway. The mud was deeper here, the stench of garbage sharp and obscene. Neet was a filthy city.

He let go, abruptly, and I stumbled.

I caught myself on the roughcut boards of the building behind us, sagging. My pulse hammered weakly through my ears as I collected myself, breathing deep.

When he spoke, his tone surprised me.

"So," he said, his voice cautious . "You can punch through walls."

_You can punch through walls,_ as if this were a new and baffling development that bore serious thought. The questions it probably raised were many.  _How long have you known that you were able to punch through walls? Does punching through walls have its own special heading on your resume? How often do you find yourself in situations where punching walls is necessary?_

I breathed a shuddering sort of laugh, reaching up to carefully comb my hair out of my eyes with clumsy fingers, minding my claws. All I succeeded in doing was to get blood in my hair. "Yep," I said, the laugh skittering around the edges of my laugh like hot fat in a frying pan. "Comes in handy if you can't find the door."

He grunted agreement, a little sound. He didn't laugh, but then again, it wasn't much of a joke.

When I brought my hand down, I was transfixed by the sight of it. Blood, already browning, crusted in the webs of my fingers.

"We need to move," he said, a consummate professional. Thank Soa he was the one making the plans again. I was  _terrible_ at plans.

I squinted at him, the long shape of him outlined dark against the weak sunlight filtering down from above. I could barely make out his face.

The shine was going out of him. That crazy, reckless sense of derring-do that only his own fear and anger brought out him was fading like a dying firefly, leaving him all bent and crooked around the edges. It made me ache a little to see it go.

He looked  _good_ kinda crazy. Beat  _sad_ all to hell.

I smiled at him. Fluttery and weak, my lips trembling. "I'm gonna need to sleep," I mumbled.

He looked at me sharply, his eyes hard and blue. His hand was still locked on his sword hilt, like it was the last thing he could depend on. He made a long, tense figure there in the dim light of the alleyway, with a mop of dusty blonde hair and a serious face and a long green coat, and overall, I was  _so relieved_ not to be on my own anymore, not to be stuck with my own stupid plans and bad dreams.

"We need to move," he said again, automatically. He looked at me like this was supposed to mean something.

I grimaced, and lifted my hands awkwardly, the tremors bleeding through harder than ever. "M' gonna need to wrap up my hands," I said.

His eyes narrowed, as if he resented being made my new nursemaid, but then, suddenly, the light in the alleyway went down a notch, the world seeming to step further and further away from me with ever second. It was a terribly familiar sensation, where had I-

"Don't pass out." he said with mechanical quickness, like keeping me from teetering off the edge was as simple as ordering me not to.

I flashed a foolish grin at him, watery and too-bright. I felt halfway like sticking my tongue out at him as I sagged downwards, slipping down the rough, splintery surface of the wall.

The whole world seemed to slip sideways and upwards, and I don't even remember hitting the ground.

**0.-0.-0**

_The memory unwrapped itself as slowly and reluctantly as a surgeon unwraps a wound gone rotten. Layers and layers of musty bandage unwinding to reveal the maggots beneath, the horror of it hitting my nostrils like a blow to the face._

_The gulls overhead and the sun stabbing at my eyes, the waves breaking on the beach, and the wet, earthy smell of the jungle._

_Home._

She shoved me away, savagely.

Her hair was in disarray, yellow curls gone supernova in the wet heat of the afternoon. Her face was a blotchy red, her nose a puffy strawberry in the center of her face.

She'd been crying.

Inwardly, I was shocked. I'd never thought he could make her cry.

I fell, hitting the ground butt-first with a jarring thump. My legs had fallen out from under me as soon as she'd hit me, nerveless.

She'd always used her weight better than I had.

Lotta stood, tall and furious, breathing in hard, angry bursts. "How can he  _talk_ like that?" she shouted, her voice shrill and wet. "The teachers- the others- they'd  _never_ talk to a student like that."

"I dunno," I said, quieter. Inwardly, I was strangely, rigidly calm.  _Is she mad at me? Is this what this is? Is she gonna leave, and I'm gonna have to find someone else?_

The thought, when it came, was dull.  _There isn't anybody else._

She whirled and took three angry, jarring steps away, her hands forming into white-knuckled fists. "And  _you,"_ she spat. " _Standing_ there, like a  _lump,_ while he  _shouts at you_ like that. _Why_?"

I looked down at the sands, quickly. I felt suddenly brittle, apt to crack under whatever she felt the need to say next. Despite myself, my shoulders hunched.

My voice was small, and cracked when I spoke. "I don't know."

"You never  _said,"_ she snarled, every long line of her carved with outrage. "He's supposed to be- He's your  _Dad."_

"No he isn't." I said automatically.

She stopped. Sudden and startled, and she turned to look at me. Her face was bright and shining with tears, with her own anger, her freckles standing out on her pale skin. Looked to me, her chest heaving, so tightly wound up and upset that she seemed fit to explode. I shrank in the weight of her anger, her righteous indignity, wishing I could feel like she did. Could  _let_ myself feel like that.

I swallowed, my shoulders curled inwards. I could say this. I could.

"He's…. my Master," I said, awkward and too-quiet, like I always was these days.

I could hear her suck in her breath, but I kept my eyes locked on the sand at my feet. Dug my fingers into the sand and curled. Kept myself under control.

I squirmed. I took a breath, then said, "I don't…. Um. Gehrich left, I guess. And Dad picked me. And I can't quit. We live in the same house."

I breathed deep, and felt my voice shrink. "There's, um. Nowhere else I can go. I guess."

Silence, then. Her anger and helplessness throbbing between us, like poison in a wound.

_Don't leave._

I knew she would. I knew that she couldn't take much more of this. I knew that unlike me, she had a choice, she had a family she could go back to and something beyond fighting in her life, and that when faced with a choice like that there was no way she was going to choose me. Hell, I wouldn't choose me.

I knew she'd go back to her mother and her father and her house by the docks, and she'd have a life of love and children ahead of her. Her blood wasn't my blood. She wasn't beholden to defend these shores. To learn our Art.

She stood there, tall and angry, and my eyes squeezed shut as I grieved for her already.  _Don't leave._

The waves broke on the beach, an endless roar, and I waited for her to go.

The sound of her toes digging into the sound was all the warning I had. When her arms locked around my neck, my breath escaped me in an explosive rush. She was there on the sand with me, hugging me for all she was worth, fierce and needy and  _Lotta_. I was enveloped, crushed against the yellow weight of her hair, while she buried her face in my neck and breathed once, hard.

"Oh  _Claire,"_ she murmured, the sadness in her voice like glass breaking. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, sorry. I'm stupid. I forgot. I'm sorry."

I unclenched. My limbs moved of their own accord, moving up her shoulders and locking around her neck and holding tight.  _Please don't leave,_ I thought, and I clung to her, breathing my prayer into her hair.

She didn't.

She should have.

**0.-0.-0**

I woke up to Zieg determinedly hauling off one of my boots.

I panicked. I saw myself back in that clearing, Gasche looming over me with that yawning ruin of a smile on his face, the dead bird dripping red ruin onto the dusty road. Terrified, sickened, and my head pulsing pain with every heartbeat, I kicked out, the tip of my foot catching him on the chin.

His jaw snapped shut with a crack and he toppled off the bed.

We were in a tiny, stuffy room with walls the color of tea, a little curtained window letting in only the barest amount of light. I was breathing hard, trapped and frightened and confused. This wasn't like waking up in the cell, this wasn't some slow and hazy reawakening, this was-

Everything was too bright and too hard and I could still  _see her face._

I tensed, about to run, about to hurl myself out the window, anything, when Zieg threw an arm over the edge of the bed and hauled himself up, his eyes reproachfully flat. He stood, his back popping, and shuffled over to sit in the chair by the window while ruefully rubbing his face.

The roaring in my ears faded.

_Oh_.

_So he-_

_Yeah_.

We were in a room. An inn, most likely. Dimly, I could hear the sounds of the city outside, rattling carts and voices and the sounds of construction.

I had absolutely no clue how we'd gotten here.

Something landed on the coverlet, and I flinched. A blue, smoky bottle with a wax seal on the cap gleamed up at me. I looked at it for a long moment, like I wasn't sure what I was seeing.

Soa help me, he sounded stern. "Drink it." He gestured vaguely at his own face, the dim light shining gold through his hair. "For your head."

I fumbled for it with one hand, then stopped as I saw the bandages wrapped neatly around my fingers.

Zieg shifted a little when I started to unwrap my hands, something rueful in his face, like he didn't want to see his good work undone. I ignored him, and he stilled, watching me expressionlessly as I unwound layer after layer to reveal the damage beneath.

I looked down at my hands, the Fog forgotten on the coverlet.

"The bruising will go down," he said eventually, breaking the frozen silence I'd locked myself into. "There were no breaks."

I nodded. "Yeah," I said, my voice a stiff, lost thing. "Thanks."

My large, ugly hands were pale and mottled, the burst blood vessels under the skin mapping a strange continent across my knuckles. The scabs had turned nearly black.

I closed my eyes, and took a deep, steadying breath through my nose. Behind my eyes, ship hulls ground to ruin on rocky shoals.  _This is all I can do._

My head jerked up. "My claws?" I said, distracted.

"Safe," he said, nodding at the table. There they sat, iron and rusty and formidable, and the surge of relief I felt was almost criminal.

"You cleaned them," I said with a certain amount of dull surprise.

He nodded, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded in front of him, his face as neutral as I'd ever seen it . Of course he had. He'd cleaned and wrapped my hands. He'd cleaned my claws, scrounged up a Fog for the rest of my injuries, and that's looking past the fact that he'd carried me here, to whatever inn this was, and only then because I'd made him a promise.

A babbled, half-mad promise made in the dark, in a  _cell_. The sort of promise no sane man would take seriously, but he had.

Of course, this was the same idiot who'd hauled me out of the reach of the guard after I'd started a brawl in his honor. Looked after me all the way to the gates of Deningrad, without offering a word in return.

I wasn't going to think about it. I  _wasn't._

The room was too close, too stuffy, too safe. It wasn't like the cell. There wasn't a problem I could focus on, somewhere I could run to. Zieg had brought himself back under control as if nothing had ever happened, and I could no longer rely on his simmering hysterics to keep my attention.

Hell, I wasn't sure there was anywhere I could run  _to_  anymore. All I could do was sit in this bed, my hands curled into useless, weak fists, my thoughts as thick and murky as porridge.

Something occurred to me, and I clung to it. "How'd you get here without getting caught?" I asked, looking up from the sheets to his face.

He shrugged, a stiff roll of his shoulders. "The city's large, and disorganized. There's thousands of different travelers here. I made sure we looked like them, and not what the army is currently combing the streets for."

I blinked, as he unfolded his arms and reached for a bowl on the table where apples gleamed. As he produced a small knife from nowhere and began, leisurely, to peel one, he said mildly, "You're lucky your employer has a reputation for fleeing town after a heist."

The ironic twist to his words was there, I knew it on some level. But it was muted, smothered by all his quiet self-control, and suddenly I remembered the hard, desperate  _mean_ man he'd been back in the cell, and was inexplicably sad.

He looked different, and I couldn't place why.

I huffed a laugh, and began to slowly wrap up my hands again, studiously not looking at the mottled skin and puffy bruising. "Yeah, well. Think I'm pretty well fired by this point." I cracked a grin I didn't feel. "We're in the same boat, right?"

He didn't rise to take the bait. I suddenly wondered how I was ever going to work with this benign stranger.

Zieg peeled his apple, arcs of green skin bending away from his large hands. "It was simple, actually," he said. "The staff were very helpful."

I rolled my eyes, ignoring the stab of pain it brought. "I don't see any mints on the pillow."

I tied off the end of the bandage, and began awkwardly prying the cap off of the Fog. "What happened? Did they see you, see the passed-out chick on your shoulder, and ask if you'd want to spring for the continental breakfast?"

"No. I couldn't risk that. The city is currently looking for a woman with knives on her fists and the tall bandit with her."

I broke the seal with a pop. "Yeah? So what then?"

He shrugged again. "So I carefully explained that I was on a business trip from Lohan, that our supplies had been stolen by bandits on the journey over, and that my son was very sick and that we needed a room immediately."

He popped a fragment of apple into his mouth, while I calmly and carefully reviewed every singe way I could take that paring knife of his and  _remove his organs._

_I'm a_ girl,  _damnit, do I need a certificate?_

He caught my rankled expression, his eyes cool. "You'll be happy to know you completed the illusion perfectly by vomiting down my back."

I choked on my Fog, dribbling syrupy liquid all down my front.

"Yes, precisely like that," he demurred, depositing the long curl of skin on the table. He blinked owlishly at me, his voice deadpan. "My coat is being laundered. You may pay me back later."

"Add it to my tab," I said sourly.

The loss of his coat, that was what was throwing me. He looked smaller without it. He wore a wrinkled, colorless shirt that he'd failed to button all the way to the throat, his wrists protruding from the too-short sleeves. Nothing he wore fit.

He'd had a bit of a wash, I noticed. And a shave. There was still a bit of soap on his neck, missed by the razor.

I drank my Fog quickly, drained it in one pull. It made the back of my throat go numb as soon as it hit, and I felt the numbness travel all the way down to my gullet. My fingers curled in the sheets as it swarmed up and outward, pooling behind my eyes as it eased away the persistent throb in my temple.

It wouldn't work for long, but it worked.

As the pain receded, my thoughts cleared a little, and so did the shame of the fact that Zieg's plan to hide us hinged entirely on  _how much I resembled a small boy_. And then, something occurred to me.

"How are you paying for this?"

A note of worry rang in my voice, and he paused.

"They searched us," I said, accusingly. "They had to have found any money you had."

"They searched  _you,"_ he said, his blue eyes regarding me seriously from across the room. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "Me, not as well. And after your," Oh Soa, he actually cleared his  _throat "treatment_  at the city gates, I became considerably better at hiding my funds."

When I stared at him, uncomprehending, he shrugged again. "They didn't take my coat."

_Oh,_ I thought.

I drew my knees up and rested my battered hands on top of them, the sheets puddling around my feet. My muscles felt like wet, spongy cake. He ate his apple, neat to a fault, and the room descended into silence once more.

He was being perfectly polite, perfectly mild, and it was  _amazing_ how uncomfortable it made me.

_A shine of teeth, just behind my eyes, a skew eye gleaming in the firelight._

Well. Not that uncomfortable.

Odd, how much easier it had been to talk to him while tied to his back, the circulation stuttering to a halt in my bound hands, while he seethed and bled his outrage out through every pore in his body.

I noticed, distantly, that he was sitting as closely to the window as possible. No wonder his manners had made their comeback.

I stewed in my discomfort, wondering what I should say, wondering if  _I_ should be the one making the plans now, since it was my stupid flailing that had landed us in the first place, when his knife stilled.

He spoke, his voice slow and cautious.

"I wanted to thank you."

I stiffened. Tried to evade it, tried to push past the tone he was using, and leaned back against the headboard, acting casual. "What, for horking down your back?" I shrugged. "No problem. One of my perks."

"For freeing me," he said, and he was not looking at me. "Even when I refused you."

I followed his gaze, followed it down to his wrists, where for one fluttering second I saw the shine of old scars, so old and faded they were hardly there.

I looked up. Looked away. Looked  _anywhere_ else.

"Yeah, well," I said, rough and unwilling. "Didn't think I could do it on my own."

He wiped his hands on his pant leg, coiling himself back up again like a length of boat line. His face was studiously blank, like he'd never said anything at all.  _How does he_ do  _that,_ I wondered. Me, I'm direct. I'd never be able to do something like that. Any attempt I made to thank him was going to wander all over the place, every filthy emotion I'd ever had sauntering across my face one after the other. I resented him for his calmness, for his careful silence.

To my surprise, his lips quirked. "And I meant what I said about breaking down the wall. Very impressive."

I caught the quick gleam of teeth in that one.

I puffed my amusement through my lips. "That?" I drawled. "That's just flash. It ain't even real fighting, just something you can do to show off your skill. Comes in handy though."

A look bloomed on his face, a wry, understated look. And I remembered that he was a swordsman, a  _good_ one, and probably knew all about the kinds of flashy shit people pulled to puff up their image. He just didn't  _use_ any of 'em because he knew better.

"And hell," I said, wonderingly. "You're  _fireproof."_

He grimaced, and scratched his cheek awkwardly, choosing not to comment.

A glint caught my eye. His sword was leaning against the wall beside him, naked and shining. He'd already cleaned and sharpened it to within an inch of its life.

And then, slowly, something dawned on me.

He'd found us safe harbor. Found us food. Found me medicine, and he'd wrapped up my weeping hands. He'd stayed guard while I'd been unconscious, and passed the time by making sure that both of our weapons were in top condition.

I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before.

"You're a soldier," I blurted out.

And regretted it, as quickly as that.

His knuckles shone white through his skin, his grip on the knife tightening until it was nearly bloodless.

My breath caught.

_Holy shit I think I broke him._

"Yes," he said, distantly, after a hundred years of silence. "I gather I was. Once. I think." His voice had changed, moving from that wry, steady cadence with the hint of a rebuke hovering around the edges to the short, clipped wall-shrinking misery I was coming to know so well.

"You think _?"_ I asked before I could stop myself, and then cursed myself a thousand times a fool because the look on his  _face._

He looked out the window.

"I have been… ill," he said, choosing his words with obvious care, all his self-control stumbling back up again, brick after brick. "And my recovery has been… a long time coming. When we first encountered one another I was still…" he paused again, the difficulty he was having showing briefly on his features, and he let the thought linger.

I gripped my fingers, ruthlessly tight.

"As for what I was before, yes, I gather I was a soldier," he said, placing the knife carefully on the table, his hands uncurling stiffly and reluctantly. The apple sat forgotten, white flesh browning rapidly.

He sounded blunt and brittle, and his eyes were far away.

He shook his head, his voice growing thick. "But nothing is clear. My life before is… a dream. I remember people, places, events, but as if they were in another life. Before."

_Before what?_ I wanted to ask, but I wisely kept that locked up tight.

And for all his fumbling attempts to retain that look of removed disinterest on his face, I saw through it, saw the spreading stain of something that was familiar to me as breathing.

He had a look on his face that I recognized. I'd seen it in myself, that day in the armory tent with that small square of mirror. That feeling of being deeply,  _sincerely_ afraid of what lurked just beneath the surface of your own thoughts.

In short, he looked miserable and afraid. Just like me.

I fidgeted with the coverlet, wishing oddly that I had my claws on, that I didn't have to feel this stupid and thoughtlessly cruel.

"…That's why you need your stone," I said after a long moment, where he stared and stared out the window and didn't say anything to fill in the gaping hole he'd made of our shipwrecked conversation. "As a memento."

His gaze drifted back over to me, as soft and faraway as the sky. ""Yes," he said, his voice smoothing. "A memento. One that is precious to me."

The thought was slightly chagrined.

_I spent two whole days in the woods with this man, and I never even wondered what lay beneath_.

Sometimes I hated myself.

The words dragged out of me, because I owed it to him.

"Thank you too, I guess," I said, trying for his same, stilted nonchalance, trying to sound like these words didn't contain any depth of feeling.

His eyes flicked over to me, sluggish and cold, the fires banked.

I shrugged. Felt the pull of bruised muscle in my shoulder, courtesy of a kick I'd received while still partially paralyzed on the ground. I could focus on that.

I breathed.  _Come on, it ain't that hard. You can risk one look back. Keep running, it won't catch up if you don't let it._

Say what you wanted for Hiram Dell, but at least he'd been all about looking  _forward._ Sure that was mostly because he'd set the bridge on fire while you were still only halfway across, but it was  _sure as shit_ preferable to this.

I stared at my feet, at my one remaining, ridiculous boot.

"For not letting me…" I grimaced, useless at words, useless at confronting something that I was bound and determined to forget twenty minutes from now. "You know."

_My teeth drawing back in a snarl, a_ grin,  _and again and again my knee drew up to stomp down, to splinter and break and ruin, the hornets rattling behind my eyes, only this time his face was beardless and freckled and so_ frightened

_No._ That was it. I'd said it. Time to move on past it.

But curse him for a scoundrel, because he wasn't like me.

He didn't feel the need to fill something like that with words, with his own awkwardness. He just nodded, and took my apology for what it was worth, which was slightly infuriating because I couldn't tell how much he'd shell out for it in the first place.

And while I sweated, there on the bed, the smell of apples souring in my nostrils, he leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs and said in a dubious sort of voice, "I think I fought with someone like you once."

It was an out, and I took it. "Yeah?"

He nodded again, slowly. "He fought with those clawed armguards, like you do. With no regard for himself. We were comrades. Of a sort. Before."

_Before_ was clearly not a country famed for its wine and fine cheeses, a country he clearly never wanted to visit again, but he was calm when he said it.

He huffed out a breath, and said ruefully, "And he was insane. Clearly, justifiably insane. Like you." he said, and that crooked ghost of a smile came back.

That explained the recognition in his eyes when we'd fought earlier.

My heart jolted into my throat, and I let his dig slip by. "Was he- did he look like me?" I frowned, and gestured to all of me. "But, you know,  _tall?"_

Zieg shook his head. A short, sharp jerk. "No." he said, chilly, and any hopes that it might have been Gehrich sank like a rock in my gut. No, this must have been from Before.

I hadn't realized how strong the hope had been until it died in my throat.

After a pause, he rubbed the back of his neck and said in his mild voice, as if it wasn't much of anything at all. "He destroyed himself, in the end. In battle, as was his will."

"I like to think I could have stopped it." he said, after a long moment where my thoughts stuttered stupidly through my head, a thousand variations of  _uhh…. Sorry?_ cut off before they could have a chance to break out and wreak havoc . "If I had it to do again, I would have stopped it."

His voice grew vague, taking on that slightly rambling quality he'd had in the cell, like the walls were drawing closer. "He had no one to hold him back, you see" he said dreamily. "No one to tell him that he didn't need to do what he was doing. We should have. That was our folly."

_Who's we?_ I wanted to ask, but I'd carve my own tongue out before doing that to him.

He'd done it again. Talked nice and normal, keeping up a long smooth string of words until the hurt welled up like dead rats in the bathwater. Me, I kept my crazy boiling right up in the open- that was  _healthy._

He'd hardly spoken, when I'd first met him. I'd never even noticed.

"Yeah. Well. Thanks." I said, stumbling over my words like the treacherous footing it was.

Soa, why was I so  _bad_ at this?

The conversation lurched to a halt again. Zieg's face was as closed tight as I'd ever seen it, but then he gave a sort of shake, and drew a deep breath. "And your cousin?" he asked briskly. "You mentioned him before You're searching for him."

I winced. "Oh yeah. Him."

_Oh jeez, how to put this…_

_Better to just go for it._

"My cousin works for Hiram Dell," I said bluntly. "I joined up, sometime after I left you, thinking that could get me to him." I shrugged. "But Dell's got him somewhere I can't reach."

He looked serious. "Dead?"

I flinched. " _No,"_ I snapped, and he blinked at me, taken a little bit aback.

I looked down, saw the sheet wound through my white-knuckled fingers, and relaxed my grip. "… I don't know. I doubt it. Dell… wouldn't kill him, I don't think. Not if I wasn't watching." _Shit, he'd put on a floor show._

He made a small  _hn_  sound of understanding. But he didn't press it.

"So you were running to him, all this time?" he asked, after a moment.

That stung, all the more because it was a shot I hadn't been expecting. "I wasn't running  _to_ anything," I snarled. "I didn't even know he was on the Continent until I saw his face on a fucking wanted poster."

He blinked slowly, taking in this new information, and I went white with the realization of what I'd just let slip.

_Aw, fuck_ me.

I reached up and sank my fingers into my dirty hair, grimacing. "He's like me," I said. "But, tall," I added grudgingly. "He fights like me.  _Thinks_ like me. And I need to find him. Don't ask why," I added quickly.

"If you don't wish to speak of it, I won't trouble you," he said, and the stupid thing was, he probably meant it.

"Thanks," I said. "I guess." I shook my head. "But I aim to find him. And you, " I said, leveraging a finger in his direction. "You need your rock back, yeah?"

He nodded, then said, "A plan is in order."

I nodded in return. "Right."

He continued looking at me expectantly.

Realization dawned, and I pulled a face, "Aw.  _Aw._ No. I am not the man with the plan. I do not  _plan._ I just run into things. Usually fist first."

"You seemed to have the makings of a plan back in that cell."

I threw my hands in the air, my voice incredulous. "You call that a plan? I just said that to get your ass in gear! I got nothing!"

He frowned at me. "That's all we have? To find your relation and my stone, then to part ways amicably?"

I shrugged. "Sounds good to me."

His brow furrowed further. "To do that we'd need to know the Dell Gang's location. And there's no guarantee that we could find him before he got to your cousin. Or, Soa forbid, fenced my stone to someone even more morally dubious than you."

I let that comment slide with only the slightest baring of my teeth. "Good luck to him. 'Cept it's kinda hard to fence something when you don't even know what it is. Ten Millies says he's using it as a paperweight."

He blinked at me, slowly, like a lizard. I could almost  _see_ him counting to ten.

I ignored him, and leaned back against the headboard like a queen. "'Sides. I know where they're going. They're heading somewhere up north, to meet up with the other half of the group, and to divvy up their loot. We were heading there when you came in."

Zieg raised his pale eyebrows. "How lucky."

He sat up straighter, and said more clearly, "Then it's settled. We head north, brave the snows, and confront your employer."

_Snows?_ I thought with some puzzlement.  _Oh wait, I read about that somewhere. Eh, can't be that bad._ "Fine by me," I drawled, determinedly not thinking about what confronting Hiram Dell would entail.

His eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward. "And we are partners in this. Our fortunes tied. You  _will not_ betray me again."

_Ah heh. He remembered._

I kept my cool. "Done."

"Good," he said, his eyes cool. He settled back into his chair, all long limbs and ill-fitting clothes.

"Then," he said, after a long moment of me sitting there feeling dizzily like I'd just successfully finagled something. "Where are we headed."

"A fort," I said. "Up past the glacier. They've been using it for years." I ran my fingers through my greasy hair, the bandages catching slightly. "It's like…. You know the center of the Evergreen? It's haunted, or something, and it's up in the wilderness where the army doesn't have any outposts."

"A fort," he repeated. He nodded. "Wise of them." He leaned over and picked up the knife once more, pulling the bowl of apples closer to him. His lips lifted a little, a strange sort of smile that didn't reach his eyes. " A long journey. A showdown with a wanted criminal. This should prove simple enough."

He was trying to be nice. Somehow this was more disturbing than his snapping at me in the dark.

I ignored his clumsy offering. I couldn't deal with it now. I snorted. "Yeah, 'course. Good luck finding somebody who knows how to find wherever Magrad is."

The bowl cracked neatly when it hit the floor.

The apples, doubtless as confused as I was, rolled under the bed.

**0.-0.-0**

 


	16. Chapter 16

> _"The only cure for grief is action."_
> 
>   
>  **-** _George Henry Lewes_   
> 

**0.-0.-0**

> _My friend, you would not tell with such high zest_
> 
> _To children ardent for some desperate glory,_
> 
> _The old lie: Dulce et decorum est_
> 
> _Pro patria mori._
> 
> _\- Wilfred Owen_

**0.-0.-0**

From what I'd heard told, Dad had married a neat lady.

She was from a good family. One of the lines that could be traced all the way back to the Founders. Sure, she had some of the mainland running through her veins, but these days, almost half the island seemed to, and unless you had the bad luck to come out blonde and blue-veined like Lotta, nobody said two words about it. She trained under Keys, back when he was still one of the big men in charge. A Disciple. She was good.

People said she could talk to the War God.

Keys told the story of my parent's bumbling courtship best, like he told all stories best.

"Your mom," he said, relishing every word, "thought he'd been  _dropped on the head_ as a kid."

He'd cackled, a creaky note of glee ringing in his voice. "And not just once or twice, hey whoops, gee these things are slippery. Like his parents must've used him to  _prop open doors_ one too many times."

Haschel had adored her from an early age, from the way Keys told it. A one-two punch sort of love-  _WHAM_ and you're down, ears ringing, heart pounding, and with the vague sense that something terribly irreversible just happened. He was two years younger than her, and behind her in his training. While he was still fucking around with monkey poles and breaking his hands down to bloody stumps, she was a bona fide pirate killer, with her own set of claws, and her own rank in the village defenses.

"She was a real kick in the teeth, your mom," Keys said. "But she wasn't the type to need looking after. That threw your dad for a loop, lemme tell you, and thinking that she  _was_ didn't do him any favors. Don't know  _why_ he got it stuck in his head that she needed protecting, but there it was."

"She was real short, like you." he said, shifting in his chair. I listened from where I was sitting cross-legged on the floor down below, a mug of tea in one hand and my eyes were huge. "And solid as hell. But  _curvy,"_ he said, leering the leer of one to whom the phrase "inappropriate subject matter for small children" means  _absolutely nothing_. "And there's a  _lot_ a man'll do for a curvy lady. Trust me."

He said that last bit like it was important, and I nodded dutifully and filed it away for future reference. Never mind the fact that I was going to grow up about as curvy as your average bag of hammers.

His smile grew soft. "Nothing winds a man up more than a lady who can whallop your head clean off your shoulders without chipping a nail, Claire, and don't you forget it. Naida could outfight, outsmart, and charm the pants off anybody she met. She couled fightlike a goddamn tsunami, and ten minutes later she'd be out shooting the shit with the old farts in the teahouse. She was the genuine article."

He shook a finger at me. "Your dad didn't have a chance in hell with her. And he knew it. Went around moping for  _months,_ while she walked around with some fellow who worked out by the oyster beds. Everybody thought he'd snap, take a header from the training platform and end it already."

"So what happened?" I asked, watching goggle-eyed from the floor. .Then I blinked, and added defiantly. "This is stupid. I  _know_ they ended up together."

"Huh," he snorted. " _Barely."_ He squinted at me from his chair. "You wanna hear this or not? Shut up. Be polite."

I rolled my eyes, and drank my tea.

" _Anyways,"_ he said. "Boy's basically playing with a pair of twos, and trust me, kid, your mom had  _all_ the aces. He's running out of ideas."

He took a swig off some foul-smelling bottle of homebrew. "So he figures, he's turning into hot shit, been working on his game, and he's getting halfway to approaching something decent. So he corners her. And he challenges her. A match, up on the training platform."

My eyes went round.

He shrugged. "Maybe he thought he knew he was doing, maybe he was desperate. Don't know.  _Damn_ stupid thing to do, though. You think your Dad's proud? He didn't have  _nothing_ on Naida."

Keys grinned like a shark. "Caught most of it just kinda gave him that look, that  _are-you-so-fucking-slow-in-the-head-that-I'm-gonna-get-in-trouble-if-I-hit-you_ look. And she accepted."

" _No_ idea was the kid was thinking." he continued. "I mean, say out of some one-in-a-hundred-million chance that she eats some bad oysters the night before and he ends up beating her. Knocks her down in front of the whole island.  _Yeah._ And when she kicks his ass, what's he going to prove?  _Maybe_ he thought he could at least beat her to a draw."

"Did he?" I asked, trying hard to sound like I didn't care very much and failing miserably.

He barked a laugh. "Were you  _listening?_ Your dad was lucky she didn't pop his head like a goddamn zit. Shortest fight I ever saw. He didn't wake up till the following afternoon, and by then the story had already gone round.  _Everybody_ knew. Boy was laughed at from morning to night, and the ones who weren't laughing were shaking their heads and saying,  _What were you_ thinking _, son?"_

He took another drink and wiped his mouth with the back of one scarred arm, his tone sobering. "And it might have ended there, kid. 'Cept that spring we got hit by one of the worst batch of pirates in recent memory. Four boats full. They hit us in waves, coming in at night from, shit, say six different points. Set fire to the town, set fire to the docks, started hauling off as much water and food and women as they could carry." His face went stiff, remembering. "Got one of my nephews that day. Right when he was making sure his momma and sister got out all right."

"Your mom, she sees the fires, hears the screaming, and she goes right into action. Shoulda seen her.  _Just_ beautiful," he said, grinning. "Still in her nightgown. Showin'  _a whole lotta leg_ , is all I'm sayin. Got her claws on, and she's getting down to  _business_ , cool as you please." His eyes drifted off a little, and he rubbed his face.

"Anyways. The whole town's out there fighting for their lives, putting out fires, and shuffling the survivors off to safety. I fought near your momma, but I was kept pretty busy by the crazy fuckin' assholes ten feet away trying to drag everything they could reach back to the boats."

"Then your Dad shows up," he said. "Still wobbly on the legs from the beatdown Naida gave him a couple of days ago. Didn't matter. Didn't even have time to put a shirt on, no claws, nothing. Looking as cold and pissed-off as I'd ever seen him. And just  _nailing_ the fuckers, right and left."

"…Did they win?" I asked, a little cautiously.

He shrugged. "Well, yeah. Obvious. But that ain't the point. Story's about how your Mom decided to give him the time of day, not the case of the stupid fucking pirates. Now shut up and lemme tell it."

"Time passes, the pirates realize they're getting their asses handed to 'em, and they figure, fuck it, set the last of the fires, and beat a retreat to the boats. Can't hardly follow 'em 'cuz the  _whole town's_ burning. You'd kill yourself trying."

Keys leaned forward, his voice going low. "Naida, your mom, she watched 'em head back to the boats, still bringing back captives.  _Kids. Women._ That sort of thing. Still setting fires and breaking shit as they go. And she made up her mind right then and there, and she walked straight into that fire."

I listened as his face went serious. "She headed straight into the heart of the inferno. And your Dad, he followed her."

"They carved a way all the way back to the ships. Took care of the rest of the crews, and burnt them too. There was so much blood in the water that the sharks didn't know what hit 'em. Couldn't set so much as a toe in the bay for  _weeks._ "

He grinned. "And by the time the sun came up, there wasn't nothing those two wouldn't do for each other."

He kept that grin on his face for a long time, until it faded.

We sat in silence for a while. Keys took another pull of his bottle, and I stared down at my tea.

He watched me carefully for a long, long time.

After a while, he said. "He'll snap out of it, Claire."

I said nothing.

Wincing, he rose stiffly and slowly crossed the room to a set of cabinets, where he took down a small glass. Grumbling, he poured a generous measure of the contents of his bottle into it, and, stooping, handed it down to me.

I stared at it, not knowing exactly what a kid my age was supposed to do with it.

"Drink up, kid." he said gruffly. "Grief hits people funny. Hit your dad worse than most."

He sat down, gingerly, like his back was troubling him again. He watched me soberly, then leaned over and fluffed up my hair some. I'd been here for three days already, not knowing when Dad was going to unlock the house and let me back in, not knowing if he was ever going to go back to the suave, overconfident pirate killer my mom had fallen in love with.

"He'll come 'round. Won't seem like it. Not for a long time. I took it hard when my last wife died, yeah, and the one before that. Seems like things won't ever fit right again, but they'll fit."

He watched me, and when I continued to say nothing, a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "But back to my original point. Your mom was a  _hell of a lady_."

**0.-0.-0**

I felt trapped.

There wasn't any sense behind the feeling, not really. I'd been busted out of prison. I was safe, for the moment. There wasn't anyone especially terrifying breathing down my neck, and as long as I kept telling myself that  _eventually_ I'd be out of the city and on Gehrich's trail again, I could quit twitching like I had bugs under my skin.

I couldn't go back inside. Not for anything. Not if you  _paid_ me.

He just sat there. Like a clock with its gears jammed shut, his face as slack and dull as a corpse. The bowl lay cracked and useless on the floor where he dropped it, and I just sat on the bed trying to think of what I'd said.

I'd tried to make a joke out of it. Tried, with increasing irritation, to get him to snap back to normal, but then he'd just stayed as frozen and listless as ever.

At one point, I'd gotten up, and I'd taken hold of his shoulder. Just to shake him a little, and ask him to snap out of it, but at the first push, he'd rocked back without resistance and all I could think about was before, the rigid line of his back against mine and his hands tied to my wrists and how I could  _feel_ the outrage running hot beneath his skin, and now he was reduced to this. This boneless creature locked in some terrible, nameless curse.

It was different from before. He was a quiet man, I'd known that from the day I'd met him, but there had always been something beneath it. A graveness, a reluctance, and buried deep beneath that, a black sort of humor wrapped around enough anger to burn down the world. Seeing him then made me realize how  _far_ he'd come since that cold morning in Furni.

Whatever he was going through, whatever Magrad meant to him, I couldn't deal with it, and I couldn't leave fast enough. I took almost everything that Hiram Dell ever threw at me, but I couldn't take that and I couldn't tell you why.

So I left. Stumbled out the room and into the hallway, muttering something nonsensical about fresh air. I stood in that damn hallway for what felt like fifteen minutes, still filthy, still bruised, and with my face still crusted all over with blood from before. Just leaning against the door, not moving, nothing. Just thinking.

I don't know how long I would have stood there if that maid hadn't come by.

She was tall and fair-haired, and had the apron and small bonnet of some of the inn maids I'd seen back in Furni. The hallway was wide enough so that she didn't have to squeeze by my or anything, but she stopped anyways and said politely, "Is there anything I can help you with?"

At first I barely heard her. I hadn't had anybody talk to me without a mild trace of hostility in weeks. It took a minute or so of her staring patiently at me before I started and said, eloquently, "Uh."

She stared at me for a long, excruciating moment while I sweated and tried hard not to think about wanted posters and bars burned to the ground and Zieg's  _stupid_ cover story about me being a boy when she blinked, and then said with exaggerated caution, "Are you, are you that boy whose father brought him in?"

I tried to think of something I could possibly say that wouldn't blow my cover, but then she took care of it for me.

She blushed right down to the roots of her hair.

I  _stared._ Of all the weird, terrible things that I could see happening as a result of this disastrous conversation, that was not one of them.

She kept blushing. And curtseying. And murmuring politely about how she could be at my service and holy Soa how much did a place like this  _cost_ for her to treat me like that- how much money did Zieg  _have?-_ when she said something unbearably polite about the bathhouse being ready and then she  _took me by the hand._ And  _led me down the hallway._

Black Gods, did I look  _five_ or something?

Weirdly enough, this was exactly what it took to get my mind off the awful quiet I'd left behind me in my room- purely by virtue of its strangeness. Once she recovered from her mystifying blush, she chatted cheerfully about how atrocious the roads were and how it wasn't safe to leave the city these days and what a  _nice_ man my father was, not a bother to anybody.

By some wonder of telepathy, she got a couple other maids to bring towels and soap and all other sorts of things that seemed terribly overwhelming until I realized that, without any real action taken on my part, I was about to have a  _bath._

We're talking  _hot water_. We're talking a  _tub._ We're talking a  _private room_ with  _soap that didn't burn your skin._

The maids knew their business. They lead me to a secluded little room with drains set in the floors and hauled in bucket after bucket of steaming hot water while I hung to the walls and marveled. They kept up a constant stream of chatter that was bafflingly feminine and flew mostly over my head, and strangely all seemed to tie back to tall, blonde and catatonic upstairs.

Who, it became clear, they  _adored,_ by the way. Apparently he'd spent the entire time I'd been unconscious being polite and unassuming and  _not_  a slumped over corpse with the emotional equivalent of third degree burns covering roughly eighty-five percent of his body. Go figure.

Shit, I think one of 'em thought he was  _cute_.

Humiliatingly, they didn't spare so much as a glance for me, which I suppose was good for Zieg's story, but also meant that I was apparently able to pass for his male ( _male!)_ kid without comment. There'd been one hairy moment where one of the maids had run an eye over the brownness of my skin and remarked that my mother must have been  _foreign_ , was she dear? But I figured that it must have crossed her mind that not everybody displayed the characteristic lily-whiteness of your average Mille Seseauan and let the moment pass. There'd been another bad moment where one of them had asked for my clothes, so she could launder them. I'd frozen, my head down and my eyes locked on the floorboards, before she rolled her eyes and remarked  _boys!_ with a long-suffering sigh, and told me I could leave them outside the door if I was feeling shy.

Shy wasn't really it. Getting brought up by an old-timer as filthy as Keys got rid of shy in a hurry. My  _tits_ , now those were the real issue.

Then they all melted out of the room like they'd never really been, leaving me all alone with a deep brass tub, fluffy towels, and enough soap to take the air of banditry , prison, and vomit out from behind my ears.

It was all a little too much to take in. I stood and breathed hard for a moment.

But, of course, there's only so long I can stand quivering in dread before I have to either hit something or forget about it entirely and  _take a goddamn bath already._

**0.-0.-0**

Part of the problem was that nobody in my family was terribly good at dealing with grief.

Gehrich  _didn't_ , and that was that. His parents were dragged off by fall fever years before it had come back for my Mom, but you wouldn't have known it from the way he acted. He slept over at Keys' place most nights, or in the spare room at our house on the handful of others, and he didn't say a word about the house he'd grown up in.

Gehrich was all easy smiles and playful smacks to the back of the head right up till you started edging in on territory he didn't want crossed, and then he went  _black._ His face would shut up with a snap and then he'd quit being friendly, quit humoring me for the stupid younger cousin I was, and stalk off into the jungle to run laps and punch rocks for all I knew. The only indication he gave of his loss was the way he'd latched onto Dad, and the way he'd thrown himself into his training. He didn't talk about it. He didn't talk about his parents **,** or how frustrated he'd gotten with his training, and he  _certainly_ didn't tell anybody he was planning on leaving. He didn't, you know,  _sink into the dark lassitude of despair_ , he just scowled and threw himself into his next impossible task and never said two words about it. Until, of course, he snapped, struck my father in the face, and ran off to make his way in the world.

Dad was even worse, if that was at all possible. I don't know what I did in my previous life to inherit two emotionally allergic men in my life, but I'm sorely sorry by this point.

Dad had a wife he loved. Loved more than the Islands, loved more than the Art itself. A pirate-killing wife with a bright, fierce smile and a punch that could knock your head clean off, from what Keys said. And then she died, and she wasn't around to smile bright and fierce and tease him mercilessly about not being worthy of her anymore. All he had left was me and an empty house and a boatload of pirates each spring that chipped away at us like wolves.

So he immersed himself in the Art, and he let my uncle and Lotta's pirate-bred mother have the raising of me, and he grew harder and faster and more and more skilled with every passing year, until he  _wasn't_ the widower with the empty house and the gaping hole in his heart, he was Haschel, the best our Island had to offer, the one who only chose the best of the younger students to train with him.

He pulled Gehrich in, and he pulled me in, and he ruined both of us **.**

Or, to put it better, he turned both of us into opportunistic sociopaths who took to banditry like a dog takes to rolling in shit.

Keys, on the other hand, might as well been the healthiest member of our whole twisted family tree. He'd had a wife. Wives, even. And a whole row of little graves out back, having never been a father for more than two or three years at a stretch. And yeah, he drank, and yeah, Gehrich's leaving had gutted him something hollow, but he didn't run from it, and he didn't pretend that none of it had happened. He'd made his griefs a part of him, but they didn't weigh him down, if that makes any sense. Instead, he stayed filthy and funny and damned good company the whole time I'd known him.

But still, even if Keys had accepted his losses and grown past them, it still couldn't prepare me for the sheer cussed  _misery_ seeping out of Zieg's bones. Grief was a trap, one that my family had fallen for time and time again, but  _not_ me, no sir. The only thing you could do was tear free from its teeth as hard as you could and keep on running, or failing that,  _gnaw your own leg off_. Not sit there and let it take you.

Magrad had cut him open and spilled his guts on the floor, and the worst part was that I knew I'd been holding the knife. He just  _sat_ there, his strings cut, looking small and absurdly vulnerable for a man who shrugged off fire spells like they were an unusually brisk wind.

He didn't look different. Rather, he looked the way he'd looked when I'd first laid eyes on him in that terrible inn. Like he'd been eaten alive.

My head sank deeper into the bathwater, where I began to blow a few mulish bubbles.

 _It's not like I_ meant  _anything by it, that's just where they're_ going, I thought.  _If I'd known he'd act like I'd just walloped him in the junk with the remains of the family dog I woulda kept my mouth shut._

I sank down to my eyeballs, the temperature in the bathwater hot enough to boil me down to soup. This marked the first time I'd been truly warm since the day I'd left the Islands.

I wasn't cut out for this shit.

He'd gone back, like I'd said. Back to being full of equal parts mystifying hurt and verbal constipation, not a trace of the acid-tongued swordsman left in him. Like he'd never beaten me into the dust, like he'd never denounced me for the lying bandit I was. Like he'd never almost thrown his head and  _cackled_ when I'd busted that wall down, the crazy coming off of him like sparks.

Like he was the same old useless nobody he'd been when he'd dropped that coin.

Because he wasn't, and what's more, I knew he wasn't. I'd seen him. He wasn't that dead-eyed wimp anymore than I was some dashing bandit queen,  _thank you very much._

Seeing it made me want to  _scream._ I would have, too, would have kicked him in the kneecaps until he snapped back to normal, if I didn't have that awful feeling in my gut that all he'd do was hunker down and take it as his due.

And now, immersed in a tub with enough criminally hot water and flower-scented soap to melt away my bruises, I felt pathetically grateful for the chance to sit by myself and  _think._

I just couldn't bear to see it happen to somebody else, that was all.

To be locked, utterly, in your own grief. To not be able to outrun it, to just  _sit_ and wait for the world to put you out of your misery.

_I could've been him. If I'd let it._

Nobody deserved that.

I ran. That was all I did. I ran, and I broke things- broke  _people-_ and I never let my guilt catch up to me, no sir. Because, because, if I let myself stop, let myself grind to a halt like he did, time after time after time, I'd-

I sat up. Ignored the dangerous slosh it produced, and ignored the residual ache from my bruised muscles, and reached blindly out and fumbled for the soap.

It didn't bear thinking about.

I sighed, and ran soapy fingers through my hair. There was a painful ridge behind my ear that stung when the soap hit it- the hidden marker of my concussion. The pain wasn't too serious, and my vision hadn't been swimming when I'd woken up, so I assumed that things would sort themselves out if I refrained from getting hit in the head again for the next few weeks.

Which… seemed less and less likely the more I thought about it.

The bath helped. The slice in my ribs was nothing more than a long, angry red line by this point, and while my back, shoulders, and midsection showed all the bruises from the past couple of days, the older ones were already greening over. My rapidly pruning hands were stiff and scabbed, but they would heal, and I would be able to fight perfectly fine with them as long as I had my claws.

They trembled a little, even as I ran a rag cautiously over my shoulder.

I  _wanted_ to fight.

I didn't matter that I kept getting myself busted up. It didn't matter that I was essentially gutless, that even Zieg knew it. It didn't matter that whenever I fought I shut off my brain and only realized what I'd done once the black mist left my vision.

I'd already established that fighting was all I was good for, that this was the sum total of what I could do. And with my only ally sitting upstairs locked in his own misery, and a howling madman somewhere out in the mountains with his hands around my cousin's neck, I felt the walls closing in, but if nothing else,  _I can punch through walls._

Still, I mused, I was in much better straits. Actually, some of the best since I'd hit the mainland. I was warm. I had money…. Or, at least, presumably Zieg had money and felt like sharing enough of it to cover a few meals.

I wasn't dead. I wasn't on fire. I wasn't being leered at by weird, amoral psychopaths with strawberry hair and wolfish blue eyes.

Really,  _nothing_ looks that bad when you're mooning around in a hot bath for a few hours while other people do your laundry for you.

**0.-0.-0**

Of course I should have knocked the door down and demanded that he cheer up.

Or I should have sicced the maids on him. They would have been  _delighted_ and would have spent six hours plying him with hot towels and cocoa and some kind of ointment for his _weird_ popping joints and by the time they finished with him he'd be a new man. A new, better smelling man. With supple joints..

Instead I headed downstairs to grab a bite to eat and to come up with a plan better than yelling at him until he felt better.

I wasn't running, not really. Even though nearly every bone in my body was telling me to leap out the nearest window and hightail it to a warmer climate. I wasn't  _going_ to run from this. I just thought that I might be able to stick a few more things on Zieg's tab before I braved that door again.

A rap at the door while I'd still been bathing had alerted me to the fact that the maids had rustled me up some clean clothes while they were washing (or, in all likelihood  _burning)_ my filthy ones. The new clothes were sort of shapeless and grey, and did wonders for my, er, cunning disguise by virtue of being designed for someone two feet taller, and about eighty pounds heavier.

By the time I reached the common room, it had already gone dark. This was a quality inn, and it seemed they shut down the dining hall early. And scrubbed it, too, from the looks of it. I'd halfway thought I could scrounge something left-behind on one of the tables, but not a chance. Everything had been swabbed down hours ago from the looks of it. The maids knew their business, and were worth every penny.

All that left was the kitchens. Hopefully it was late enough that no one would be up- I'd be in and out. I hadn't eaten since-

_Since that cold breakfast Miles handed you before we hit the road again. A cold slab of pork on a greasy bun that I hadn't had the stomach to eat all of. Dell had laughed and said that it was all can-a-pays and caviar once we divvied up shares, and he'd let one long-fingered hand rest on my shoulder while he said it._

I'd thrown it back up twice over since then. I was due for a late dinner.

I could see light coming from behind a curtain, adjacent to the common room, and froze. It could be the kitchens. But if there was a light on, it meant that someone might be in there. If there was someone, I would likely have to talk to them, and if I talked to them, chances were high that everything was going to come screeching to a halt and Zieg and I would end up sharing a prison cell again.

In the end, I was hungry, and that was all there was to it.

Gingerly, I crossed the darkened room, skittish as a cat. I hoped I wouldn't find anyone, I hoped I could just sneak in and get what I needed and get back to figuring out what I was going to do with all that  _heartbreak_ upstairs when-

A wave of smell hit my face as I lifted the curtain, and I blinked as warm yellow light washed over my eyes. Warm bread and hot, savory meat and burned sugar, all at once.

A woman with creased, crinkled grey eyes looked over her shoulder, distracted from whatever she was cooking on the stove. She was tall, and stout, and had soft brown hair in a braid down her back, and wore a faded black dress underneath a well-worn apron.

At the table, a girl with her same grey eyes and curling black hair nibbled on a bowl of apple skins. She was so short that her feet swung above the floor. She stopped when I walked in, one tiny hand still holding a piece to her mouth.

I stopped. I didn't know what else to do in the face of all that overwhelming domesticity

I probably would have kept standing there till the Never-Setting Moon plopped down from the sky and Soa himself came out to toss flower chains to the crowd, when the woman smiled, and her grey eyes creased up like waxed paper. "Oh! I thought everyone had gone to bed, but I suppose I did hear Pearl and the rest running your bath. Do you need anything?"

I have had ten kinds of shit kicked out of me in the past few weeks. Policemen, the army, and in one memorable instance, a walking, very annoyed tree.

I had burned down an entire city block, and fought until I dropped in the streets of Deningrad. I had joined a bandit gang and hared halfway across the country to chase down a man who'd run away from home and ruined my life in one swoop. I had braved monsters, nightmares, bad coffee, and an  _evil fucking hillbilly_ with his  _creepy fucking pet giganto_ to get this far.

I had watched that spike come screaming down into that boy's chest, and I'd shoved it right back down into the dark where it belonged and I had borne it, I had stood up to it, I had survived.

The sight of this nice woman and her daughter in this warm, friendly kitchen just about tore me open right then and there.

Of course, it didn't make matters  _remotely_ better once those grey, wax-paper eyes melted into concern. "Oh, you poor dear. Please sit down. I'll fix you something."

Feeling slightly dazed, I hardly had it in me to protest as she shooed me into a seat at the enormous, battered kitchen table that dominated the room. The little girl, her daughter I supposed, regarded me from the other side of the table, her eyes huge. Without anything better to do, I stared back.

Kids.

Kids were  _easy._

By the time her mother came back around to my side of the table to set a steaming bowl of onion soup at my elbow, I had the little girl absolutely enraptured by the series of faces I was pulling. She didn't  _smile,_ but she still seemed quite interested, her eyes gone round as an owl's in her tiny face.

"Don't stare," chided her mother gently as she passed by on her way to take a teapot down from the shelf.

I snapped back to myself, somewhat guiltily, and looked down instead at the bowl of soup.

Something awful occurred to me.

"I can't…" I said, then stopped from the rustiness of my voice. I kept my eyes fixed on the table, hoping that she wouldn't examine me too closely. "My um. Dad has all the money."

She stared at me for a moment, confusing marring her face. Then her face erupted into the  _hugest_ smile as she said, "So  _you're_ the one who had the whole place in an uproar."

_Uh._

Well, sorry Mullet. Looks like we got in a good twelve hours of freedom before my  _cunning disguise_ fell through.

Of course then she burst out laughing at the look on my face.

She gave me the warmest smile I'd seen on this whole, frozen continent. "I'm sorry. Don't be embarrassed. Everyone was very understanding, and with what you and your father have been through, it's perfectly natural that you weren't feeling well. I do hope you've recovered."

Ah.

The throwing-up part. That made sense.

"Eat your soup, dear." she said gently.

I didn't feel it in me to argue, so I ducked my head and obeyed.

The little girl continued to watch solemnly from the other side of the table as I fumbled for my spoon, my hands so stiff and broken that I could hardly close my fingers around the handle.

The woman sat down next to her daughter and wrapped an arm around her tiny shoulders. She continued to smile as she said, "We didn't know what to think at first. We've all heard the reports coming in from the city and the outlying towns. Folks are fair terrified to leave their homes. To hear that they've begun to strike  _here,_ near  _our_ homes…. It's all a bit too much to take."

Her hand tightened on the little girl's shoulders, and I stared down at my useless hands as I began to realize that she was talking about  _me._

And not the me that Zieg had hauled in on one arm like a piece of broken luggage. The bandit me.

"I don't remember." I mumbled, my eyes still fixed firmly on the table top.

She smiled again, gently. "That's all right dear."

There was a hot, tight feeling behind my eyes that made me so suddenly nervous that I didn't even taste my first taste of soup- which was just as well because it nearly burned the roof of my mouth off. The spoon dropped from my nerveless,  _useless_ fucking fingers, spraying soup all across the table.

I didn't cry.

That's the important part.

The woman watched in some puzzlement as I reached up to swipe at my dry eyes with one scabbed hand, and then her eyes went wider still, her mouth drawing into a flat line.

That's when I realized that I was a fucking moron who'd forgotten to tie up my hands after my bath.

"Luanna, please check the bread," the woman said softly as she rose to her feet and went fetch salve and bandages. She sat down next to me once more and took my split-and-bruise-blackened hand in hers and started rubbing in something that smelled like beeswax and pumpkin and sank in like a Fog, straight to the bone, and the coolness traveled up my arm and behind my eyes until something in me unclenched. I hadn't realized that I'd been clutching that much hurt in my hands until it was gone.

The woman held my hands in hers and said gently, "I'm Mirasol. This is my girl, Luanna."

She hesitated then, as if searching for something to say, and then smiled. "And if you wait just five minutes, there will be hot bread and fresh butter and we can feed you up a little more while we talk."

After she'd rubbed the last of the salve on my hands and poured me a cup of coffee so black it seemed to absorb all the light around it. Soa above, this country was obviously having a hideous influence on me because I didn't protest. She was as good as her word. I had a crusty end of white bread swimming with butter to eat with my soup, but I didn't touch the coffee until she added six sugars and enough clotted cream to drown the bitterness. I ate, my hands still awkward and stiff but no longer throbbing, and she sat down opposite from me once more, one arm around her daughter's narrow shoulders and watched approvingly.

"When he arrived, we all thought it was the end of the world or something foolish like that," she said softly as her daughter laboriously sawed through the loaf of bread to free herself a slice. "He had you over one shoulder, unconscious and still bleeding from that  _awful_ bandit attack- yes, we heard about it even here, how they broke into the fortress to liberate their own, and this was all  _after_ word came in about those mutilations in the forest- I'm sorry, dear, this is all too upsetting."

I swallowed, my mind carefully blank as I tried to keep the word  _mutilations_ from branding itself across my brain.

"Anyway," she continued, smiling fondly, "I have never seen a man as polite or as collected in a crisis as your father. He's simply a dear. Paid up front like a gentleman,  _very_ soft spoken, half the girls fell in love with him on the spot. You don't see manners like those that often. It must be common were you're from, of course."

I kept my eyes fixed on the table as a long-ago conversation wound through my memory. "Lidiera." I muttered.

She nodded. "Of course," she said quickly, "He's a very  _solemn_ man, your father. Sad, some might say. Only smiled the once when I saw him, but Soa above, what a  _smile_."

I settled for saying nothing, only stared at the table, the food gone to ash in my mouth. There was a profoundly unpleasant sort of wriggle in my chest, but luckily the barometer in my head that told me when bursting into hysterical, vomiting laughter would not be appropriate had not completely given up the ghost.

_Yes. Sad just about covered it._

The little girl was staring at me once more, her bread forgotten in front of her. I tried to keep my shoulders from shaking, tried not to think about puppy-limbed bandit boys and laughing bandit kings with knives in their sleeves and the stupid girl who'd climbed up into their treehouse and never looked twice at all the blood on the walls, and mostly I thought about the stupid, broken, silent man sitting upstairs in the dark with soap still on his neck because he'd made sure to shave and make himself neat as soon as he'd gotten himself to safety but now all his neatness and his raw courage and his damning disapproval was in tatters and now he was just an old,  _old_ sorrowful shadow in too-small clothes and why didn't anything he own actually  _fit_?

My struggle, thankfully, went unnoticed by the cook.

She caught herself with a laugh. "Just listen to me babbling on, when all you wanted was a bit of supper after your long day. Would you like anything more?"

When I shook my head mutely, she smiled gently and said, "And what business does your father have for being sad? He has you, after all."

_He had me._

I looked up, startled, and saw her looking kindly and mildly concerned from across the table, the thoughts suddenly racing so quickly across my mind that I barely caught the shape of each one as it fluttered by.

She was right.

He had me and I had him and  _we had a goal._

A real, tangible goal, and even if it was impossible, and even if we were probably going to get ourselves messily killed, it was something to move towards.

She was right. What fucking  _business_ did he have being  _sad_ when we had work to do?

All I had to do was convince the man I'd left upstairs that he had to work with me. That he didn't have the luxury to be dismantled by his own grief anymore. That, like me, he had to run.

I owed him that much.

I looked down at my empty bowl, and at the scattering of crumbs I'd left across the table, and muttered, "Thanks. For the dinner."

She shook her head. "It was no trouble, dear. And don't worry about the bill." She rose to her feet, taking my bowl in hand. "You go off to bed now, and I'll see to these dishes. It was lovely talking to you, and I  _do_ hope you feel better in the morning."

Soa help me, I will never be able to deal with kind women  _being_ there. Never.

I stumbled out of my chair as she puttered about the kitchen once more, and was about to slink out and escape the situation entirely when one small, slightly sticky hand closed on my wrist.

I looked down into a pair of serious grey eyes underneath a mop of curling black hair.

The little girl, Luanna, squeezed my hand. When she spoke, I had to fairly crane my neck down to hear her.

"You're sad too." she said. Her smile was crooked, and not as all-encompassing as her mother's, but it was bright enough to scorch me hollow.

**0.-0.-0**

The room was dark when I finally squeezed inside again, and smelled mustier than when I'd left. He hadn't bothered to light a lamp. I doubt he'd even moved. I had to stumble around for a good three minutes trying to locate the lamp, and then the matches, and then I tripped over the bed like a goddamn moron and had to start all over again. He sat there, and the old panic started

When I finally got the room lit up, I grumbled and sat on the edge of the bed, facing him. "Hey," I said.

I studied him. He'd shaved, like I'd said, and he'd made an effort to make himself neat before I'd woken up, but he still smelled like a prison cell. His hair looked like a bunch of dirty blonde feathers. He didn't look at me.

"You should go take a bath," I said casually, flexing my fingers on the coverlet.

When he continued to say nothing, I shrugged, and said, "You hungry? The kitchen's still open. Food's not bad." I grinned. "Cook's nice, anyway."

He sat there, at the table, a long-boned ghost in a battered white shirt, and he didn't look at me and he didn't say anything, and once upon a time this would have scared the hell out of me and sent me running for the hills, but I'd found a backbone somewhere in the kitchen and this shit was getting  _boring._ I wouldn't let him do this anymore.

"So" I said. "What's in Magrad?"

I fully expected him not to answer me at all, and for a while, he didn't. But then he shifted, and his eyes dragged themselves over to mine, empty and raw and far too blue, and I saw the knots of grief that lay tangled there.

And then, hauled up from some deep recess, he shrugged. A small, defeated gesture, his first since I'd entered the room.

"Nothing," he said. Rusty and reluctant.

Despite myself, I relaxed. I'd gotten him to talk. That was something. That was progress.

"Yeah? Sounds boring." I said, trying to keep my words light and flip. "I'd hate to wander up there for a whole lot of nothing. "

He looked at me, and then looked back at the table. He remained silent. The crumpled collar of his shirt was pulled ridiculously to the side, showing the long sweep of his collarbone. There was a bruise there, reaching high up alongside his neck, a souvenir from our adventure.

I felt him slipping out of my grip, and that galvanized me.

"Is this… something you can't remember?" I asked, somewhat more hesitantly.

He didn't speak for a long, terrible time, and my courage seemed ready to trickle out through my toes. When he spoke, the relief I felt at the sound of his voice shamed me. "I'm wondering if my remembering has any bearing on the matter."

The seconds ticked by after that while I turned his words over and over in my head, hoping that they'd eventually form a shape I could recognize, to no avail. He was so  _weird._

…. _Kaaaay._

I bobbed my head dutifully, trying to act like I had any idea what he was talking about. "You were a soldier. Were you stationed there? Did you fight there?"

"Hn." He made a mirthless noise that might otherwise be called a laugh. "Magrad is a ruin. It hasn't been used as a military outpost since the Dragon War."

Gone was the gruff, guarded voice I'd come to know. He spoke passionlessly, and he sounded so unreachable, so resigned, and so  _old._

"Um," I said awkwardly, my mind searching for any sort of response. "The one from way back?"

"Eleven thousand years," he said in that same deliberate, frozen voice. "Yes."

Something had changed, I realized. I finally put my finger on it. He'd collected himself a little, in the time I'd been away, and this was the result.

He was just as trapped and hateful seeming as he'd been in the cell, and while he hadn't said anything to go for the throat  _yet,_ it was only a matter of time. He was like a kicked dog that had retreated to the back of its cage- it only growled, for now, but reach in and you were likely to get your fingers bitten off.

I still had to reach. And his being angry didn't help me any more than him drop in the traces and refuse to move forward.

"So…. What's there?"

His head snapped back, and he didn't show his teeth, didn't glare, but the effect was the same. "Whose name is it that you call out in your sleep?" he said softly, his voice purring and pure acid.

The dog at the back of the cage hadn't so much tried to take my fingers as snap off my whole hand at the wrist.

I rocked from the blow, my thoughts brittle.

 _I didn't- I won't- you don't know you_ can't _know-_

Things may very well have ended right there. They would have, if I hadn't spent the last couple of hours dwelling on the long, winding trail of grief that my father and cousin had left behind them. Dad hadn't been any different. He spent the entirety of his grief on lashing out and hurting everything in sight- Gehrich just closed up like a trap door and walked away. If I could deal with  _them…._

And… and Lotta, too. Hers wasn't a story of grief, she didn't have  _my_ family's particular talent for that, but she always knew what to do. Her and Keys both. They'd reach out and grab my wrist and haul all my caged-up hurt right out into the open. She cried for me when I couldn't cry, and she fought and raged for my sake when I could have told her I wasn't worth it, and she was the bright, warm center to my entire world and she was always open and loving and  _there._

I'm not Lotta. But I could try.

He sat there on that rickety chair, all awkward angles and stark lines, and I saw the set in his jaw and the flatness in his eyes that said, clear as day, that here was an unhappy, terrified human being, and that steps needed to be taken. Steps, regrettably, short of taking him by the shoulders and shaking him until he toldme what was doing this to him, what had happened to him, and what on earth was in Magrad so that we could go there together and  _kick its teeth out._

I sat there, and I thought about Lotta, and how she had helped me past any reasonable point because that was what Lottas did, and I thought that while Claires might only be good for breaking bones and killing and running from the police, they knew the benefit of someone being there at the right time.

I cleared my throat. Shook off the last of the shock his acid-tongued outburst had caused, and drawled, "And you think sitting here in the dark smelling like a week's worth of dirty socks is gonna help?"

An altogether different sort of silence filled the room.

I think I actually sort of surprised him. There was no annoyance on his face when he slowly lifted his head and  _stared_  at me, but then it appeared like it had never left.

"I mean," I rattled on cheerily. "I've seen some useless coping mechanisms in my time, but that right there is the winner. You are  _embarrassing_ me."

A haggard expression of disbelief and dislike crept across his face. And then I realized that the glint in his eye wasn't annoyance, that was  _anger._

I felt a bit like a landslide slowly picking up speed. I couldn't have stopped myself if I'd tried.

"Can't you, you know,  _drink?_ Like a normal person? Or smoke opium, or write lousy poems, or go out and score chicks or something? Because this," I gestured expansively, "is weak. Real weak."

It was a bit horrifying, actually. Listening to me talk. I couldn't quite believe it myself. I knew I didn't have it in me to be some sort of ministering angel, to pull all his bad memories out one by one and soothe them away. I wasn't Lotta. I wasn't even sure if I was his friend.

But I could do this. If all I had in me was sucker punches and meanness and enough dumb luck to conquer the world, then I could sure as  _shit_ do this.

He stared at me from his uncomfortable perch in his chair, as if slightly unsure of the sudden turn this conversation had taken. Of course, it wasn't so much as a turn as a sudden _header off a bridge_ , but whatever. " I'm sorry that I'm unable to  _entertain_ you." he said stiffly, and suddenly he didn't sound old and ageless in his grief- he sounded baffled and annoyed.

Inwardly, I  _grinned._

"See, that right there is what I'm looking for. Sarcasm and really bad comebacks.  _Much_ better, " I said, crossing my arms.

There was a sudden change in the stifled atmosphere in the room, and I clung to it. It was if there was a break in the circling sharks all around us, and all I needed to do was drag him on through with me.

My voice sobered. "Zieg. Listen. We're going to Magrad whether you like it or not. And I can tell that's eating you up inside, and that's ok **ay**. We'll deal with that. But I'm here to tell you that it ain't some kind of big dead end waiting for you. We go there, and we don't find anything,  _least_ of all some murdering bandits? We run. We skedaddle. We comb the rest of this fucking cold country until we find them and get your rock back. Magrad's just at the top of the list." A cajoling note entered my voice towards the end.

I thought I'd lost him, but then he spoke. "You have no idea what you're talking about." he said finally, reluctantly.

I shrugged. "Probably not. I just know that there's nothing you can't outrun if you put your mind to it. And I know you. You can outrun this."

I didn't even think about the words as I said them, I just  _felt_ them. Matter of fact and as solid as rock.

I felt the shift I'd caused, felt the give in him, and I leapt forward. "And shit, I don't care what happened to you  _before_ \- you gotta start thinking about what we're  _facing_ here." I said. "Lighten up! We're  _hunting bandits."_ I gestured, trying to make him see the enormity of it. "Really  _fucking talented_  bandits."

"We're in this together," I finished. "I can't do this alone, and neither can you. Clearly. No offense."

I paused then. Thought about what Mirasol downstairs had said, thought about her grey-eyed daughter and  _you're sad too_ and thought about what I could possibly say that would mean  _anything_ to this man.

I stared down at my bandaged hands in my lap, and tried to pull my strength towards me.

In the end, I looked up and grinned a grin that felt cracked at the edges, and shrugged. "We're comrades." I said.

He looked up.

His eyes were raw and wondering, as if that word unlocked a door that had rusted shut centuries ago. His face was stripped bare, and there was grief there, true, and a bottomless sort of horror that had been there from the first day I'd met him, but now there was something stark and hungry and terrible that I couldn't ever face, even if I'd wanted to.

So, of course, I leaned over and smacked him on the knee. He stared at it like he wasn't quite sure what had just happened.

"Go take a bath," I said. "And then we both go out to get murdered."

I refused to think about my words, about the colossal stupidity of what I was saying. Refused to think that he had every right to deck me right there for making mock of something that was obviously shredding every scrap of his manhood as I watched. I refused to think about any of it, just flopped back on the bed and began to pull the blankets over me like it meant nothing.

I wasn't Lotta. It wasn't like I was gonna finish it off with a  _hug._ He was lucky I didn't end it with a kick to the ass.

I kept an eye on him, though. He sat there, outlined in the lamplight, and in the dim green light of the Never-Setting Moon that came in through the tiny window. As I watched, the corner of his mouth pulled to the side, then relaxed. A frown. Or maybe a grim attempt at a smile.

His joints popping like an old man's, he rose stiffly to his feet.

"Get some sleep," he said.

"You taking a bath?" I asked, muffled, into my pillow.

"Yes."

"Good. I mean it. You stink."

He turned and shuffled towards the door. Black Gods help me, he actually seemed sort of embarrassed. "Don't forget to eat," I added quickly. Mirasol might still be up, and she would undoubtedly be delighted to feed him up for an hour or so.

"I won't," he said, and then there was one truly terrifying moment when he stopped and stood by the foot of my bed. He paused there, one long fingered hand wrapped around one of the bedposts where I could see it out of the corner of my eye.

But then, thankfully, it broke, and I didn't have to deal with any odd emotional displays when of course I hadn't  _meant_ anything I'd said and I wasn't a good person and I didn't deserve his gratitude.

To my great relief, the moment broke. He shut the door behind him, and left me there, feeling kind of stupid and mighty accomplished and weirdly  _light_.

**0.-0.-0**


	17. Chapter 17

> " _You're only young once, but you can be immature forever."_  
> 
> 
> _-Germaine Greer_

**0.-0.-0**

I stared down at the foot of the bed with a look of dreamy disbelief. "Okay, so apparently there's serious money in show fighting."

"There's serious money in banditry," Zieg said blandly. "Look where that got you."

If he felt well enough to be sarcastic, I figured he must be on the mend. I sneered back at him and busied myself with pulling my old, thin shirt off and pulling the clean one the maids had cleaned over my head. He blinked once and turned to face the wall almost mechanically.

If he was feeling well enough to act  _shy_ I figured he must be on the mend from last night. Me, I didn't care if he saw my skinny ribs or not- I wanted to try out my new duds, He'd bought me a coat, a heavy, leather affair with a thick wool lining that I pulled on without much struggle. There was a hat to go with it, but it had a bobble so I pretended not to see it.

He hadn't sprung for much in the way of new clothes for himself. He had the same old boots, the same worn, ill-fitting button-up shirt and trousers, but of  _course_ he'd scrounged up something for me. He'd gone out sometime before I'd woken up this morning, supply shopping for the trip into the mountains. By some wayward nod from Soa, he'd gone unnoticed. From what I'd gathered, he'd procured enough food and gear for the trip, in preparation for almost every eventuality short of being messily killed by an armed psychopath.

I gathered that was what the sword was for, really.

There was a sizeable pile of potions and various sundries at the foot of the bed that Zieg was carefully wrapping up and packing into what looked like a saddlebag. I saw the blue-green gleam of Fogs, and one or two tiny spheres of glass that glowed with faint white light from where they lay on the coverlet.  _What are those… Angel Prayers? What, in case Dell kills one of us right off?_

Zieg turned around once I put on the coat, looking more relieved than particularly chivalrous, and narrowed his eyes at me. "Put on the hat," he said sourly, and there was a glint in his eye that I didn't much like.

I ignored that. "I've never seen snow up close. I mean, I've  _read_ about it. At what point do we start eating each other?"

"…Soon, I expect," he muttered.

I also ignored  _that._ "Did you bring breakfast?"

He had. Apparently the wait staffed had been charmed to the point of sending up a domed,  _heated_ plate of food and a pot of coffee. He sat in his rickety chair by the window with a steaming cup, looking oddly peaceful. He took it black. It figured.

I ate my food in my new warm coat with the scratchy collar and regarded the picture he made in the dingy yellow light of our room. He looked tired and bleak and sort of ragged around the edges, and couldn't look more like the same curt stranger I'd first met if he tried.

In other words, he looked completely back to normal.

He was also giving me a meaningful look.

I gave in and glared at him. "I'm not wearing the hat."

"You will wear the hat. It will keep your ears from freezing. In the snow."

"It has a bobble. I am  _not wearing the hat."_

He leveled a distant, almost supremely disinterested stare down his nose. "I bought you that hat. And your breakfast. And your bed. You are wearing the hat."

I made a sound of disgust and jammed the thing over my ears. He had the nerve to look distinctly unimpressed.

I ate my breakfast, and left the coffee. It was an odd thing, this new comradely-ness. It wasn't the uneasy forced friendliness that had borne us all the way to the gates of Deningrad- all  _that_ had done was make me see him as more of an easy mark. Plus, he was terrible at being friendly. The new framework that we'd cobbled together the night before wasn't quite the snarling hostility from the prison cell, or even the sort of giddy, forced neighborliness that had come with hacking our way out. Whatever it was, it was weird, and I wasn't sure if I liked it, but whatever it was, at least he was moving. And talking. And, apparently, feeling good enough to go ahead and order me around.

Of course, my unease could be based entirely that he was the first guy I'd been around who wasn't family or a murdering bandit, and that he was no longer trying to kill me.

I stared at my food, which was warm and rich and probably still bore fingerprints from all the effort Mirasol had put into it, and I tried to bury the feeling rising in my veins. All I could think about was running down alleys with my heart in my mouth and men who shrugged off flames to shoulder forwards and about the stupid things I tended to say when I was trapped and panicky and desperate to kick things into motion again.

Of course then I lifted my head and said with a care that I hadn't known I was capable of, "…Are you gonna be okay when we get there?"

To give him credit, he didn't shut down, and I didn't regret saying it because that's what grief's there for, to throw itself in your face every so often to remind you that you are still alive and still moving forward. He didn't grind to a halt.

Sure, he looked blank, and there was a hint of guardedness at the edges that I was coming to recognize, but he didn't crack, like before. He hadn't been expecting it, that was for sure, even though I was doubly sure that he'd been dwelling on the same question all morning.

In the end, he took another drink of his coffee, the weak early sunlight shining on his hair, and said carefully, "We shall see."

His brow furrowed for a moment more, and he shifted in his chair, looking uncomfortable. But then, he looked at me and the corner of his mouth pulled up in a tired smile. "But thank you," he said.

I coughed on my breakfast, which made a small look of alarm flash across his face, but I recovered admirably.

The knock at the door made us both jump.

The chambermaid who poked her head inside wasn't one of the ones I'd seen previously, but she still flushed clear down to her neckline when she saw Zieg sitting by the window, looking vaguely puzzled. "Sir, your bill was settled, and I just wanted to tell you what a pleasure it was to help you in these difficult times. Oh, how  _adorable."_

She was referring, of course, to my hat.

**0.-0.-0**

"You bought a  _Runner?"_

It was large and grey and mournful-looking, and had the longest princess eyelashes I'd ever seen.

I turned on him, suddenly extremely suspicious. "How much money do you  _have?_ "

"We'll need it if we're to travel north." he said smoothly, pointedly ignoring my question as he tightened one of the straps on the pack saddle. "It's carrying the rest of our supplies."

The Runner bore all of this with sorrowful good will. At one point it turned its head to inspect his sleeve with its long lips. Zieg paused only to regard it dubiously.

I squinted at it. It stood at least as high as Zieg's shoulder, and was one of the two legged, stout variety that they bred exclusively up north. Not that I knew very much at all about Runners, other than that they were huge and bred to carry heavy loads. Most of the ones I'd seen before had had four legs, or paws rather, and pulled wagons through the city. This particular specimen was wide-hipped and stout, and had two tiny hand… paw things that it held uselessly in front of it, as if about to wring them worriedly. It had a large pack strapped across its withers, piled high with canvas.  _Soa above, when were we ever going to need all of this stuff?_ "Does it have a name?" I asked.

The dismay I felt while looking at it gradually identified itself as the sinking feeling that, knowing me, this poor creature would end up eaten by wild animals as soon as we left the city.

Zieg sighed and straightened up, or at least as much as he usually did. "The man at the booth called it Max."

"…Is he friendly?" I asked.

A muscle in his cheek jumped. "Demonstrably." he said.

Max began to wrap his lips tenderly around Zieg's wrist. He looked down at it with a look of dim horror.

Zieg looked better in the full light of day. Not  _good,_ he'd never looked all that great, but better. Not the grinning lunatic who'd broken out of jail with me, but neither was he the sad creature who'd inexplicably sprung to my rescue in Furni.

The contrast couldn't have been more stark, really. He was different. Maybe it was like he said, that he was recovering from a long illness, and maybe all of this running around and death-defying and seducing chamber maids was doing him some good. Maybe  _I,_ by virtue of existing, and by in fact  _instigating_ most of the death-defying and whatnot, was doing him some good.

Really, when you thought about it  _that_  way, it kind of cancelled out everything I'd ever done to him.

I mean, sort of. It might work in court, anyway.

There'd been no sight of the friendly cook from last night, but I'd seen Luanna's little head peering at me from behind a doorframe just before she darted out of sight. I was relieved, in any case. Something about her made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, no matter how much I liked kids.

The courtyard was deserted at this early in the morning, but we could still hear the beginnings of traffic and commerce coming from further in the city. Neet was a bustling logging town. Here was hoping that it was bustling enough to cover our exit. Zieg was finishing up the last of his final check on Max's straps, his battered green coat, freshly laundered and mended, back on his shoulders like armor. I watched, still vaguely off put by the presence of the Runner (what were we going to  _feed it?)_  and kept my thoughts to myself.

In all honesty, I liked him this way. I liked him funny and sort of an asshole, and I didn't like thinking about how he was before. How he'd been last night. The man there was a sleepwalker. He smiled like it hurt and moved like an old man and was so horribly polite that you figured it must be because he was slow in the head and deserved what he got.

This new, debatably improved Zieg was kind of a jerk, who figured he didn't have to be nice to me because I'd screwed him over a couple of times and looked at me like I'd just torn the ground from beneath his feet when I said we were comrades. He was complicated and unhappy, which beat plain old  _sad_ with its hands tied behind its back

I tried not to think about last night overly much, to be honest. He'd been too raw then, too fresh in his baffling grief. He was calmer now. I could deal with that.

Nothing would mollify me over the hat, which I crammed into Max's saddle pouch at the nearest opportunity despite his quiet glare of displeasure.  _No_  amount of cold would justify that hat. I'd sooner my ears froze off.

It  _was_ cold, though. The mud in the streets had an odd crunch to it that didn't really mean anything to me because tropical islands don't exactly breed for that sort of thing. I distracted myself for a time by the fact that my breath apparently gave off fog when I realized that Zieg was fixing me with a look that spoke of impatience.

"We're ready," he said when I finally looked at him.

"Gotcha," I said, shoving my hands into my pockets and wishing like hell that he'd let me wear my claws in city limits. I was already scanning the streets, wondering if Dell had men stationed here, if they'd heard about the breakout and would hit us as soon as we left Neet. Dell had to be pissed. That look, that promise in his eyes when the army had descended. He wouldn't forgive what I'd done, not without blood.

_Gehrich, wherever you are, watch your back. I'm coming for you. Whatever happens then, I don't care. Whatever happens after doesn't matter._

I turned to go, but then I realized that Zieg was still standing in his tracks, still fixing me with that slightly uncomfortable blue stare.

"…We're  _ready,"_ he said again, and I turned on him to snap that he made a lousy grandmother when I saw his face, and saw that he had taken this whole comrades thing a bit more seriously than I'd figured.

He'd pretty much organized this entire journey on his lonesome while I'd still been in bed, but he still wanted to stop and make me realize that we were in this stupid thing together.

It hit me then.

What we were doing. What had happened, all of it, to lead us to this ridiculous, cold moment in the muddy street with a grey Runner and an awful hat stuffed somewhere out of sight. It was like that stupid coin falling in that terrible bar a century and a half ago, when I'd done something just as poorly planned and doomed to failure as what we were doing now.

_Comrades._

_Right._

He was still looking at me, still tired and still younger than I'd ever seen him.

I tried on a smile, no matter how bad it fit, and tried to ignore the sudden embarrassment that hit me like a wave. "Yeah. Um. Lead the way."

He nodded, and the moment passed, thank Soa. He took up Max's lead rope, who looked at him with naked adoration on his long face, and Zieg seemed utterly resigned to this fact.

"I'm not used to leaving places that aren't already on fire," I muttered as I fell into line behind him.

I think he actually chuckled at that.

**0.-0.-0**

So much of my life boiled down to tromping around the woods with strange men.

They didn't search us when we left the town gates, but that was only because they were too busy searching every single man, woman and child who was coming in. The wagons at the gates surged forward with every one that was let in, as if desperate to reach the safety of the city before Dell could come swooping out of the haunted forest with his band of murderers. The fort itself, in the center of town, was locked up to the rafters with no one coming in or out. Folks were  _scared._

I realized as I walked that Hiram Dell essentially had this entire country paralyzed.

I'd left Deningrad in flames, from what I'd heard, and with yesterday's ruckus in the fort prison, tensions had to be at the breaking point. That wasn't even taking into account the things Dell himself had done to bolster his reputation for being a cold fucking killer.

Really, I thought banditry would be more drinking and tweaking the noses of the establishment. Sort of, you know, a take from the rich, give to the bored sort of thing. Instead, it had been kind of awful and terrifying and lead to things like ladies like Mirasol sitting in their kitchens late at night shaking their heads and talking calmly about murders in the night and mutilations in the forest.

Of course, I hadn't seen any of his work first-hand until the day I met Zieg. I'd figured it was all some kind of blown-up story, the sort that anybody tells about somebody famous. I hadn't listened to Miles, telling me slow and matter-of-fact about what Dell did to those he thought had betrayed him. I hadn't wised up even when I'd seen the army camp they'd taken over just to make a point. Sure Dell was  _creepy,_ but hell, I was willing to put up with it if it meant seeing Gehrich again.

…Sometimes the string of increasingly poor decisions I'd made to get to this point became abundantly clear. I made it my policy to ignore these times.

I told myself that it didn't matter. That I was going to find Gehrich, that it had been the only possible plan at the time, and that it didn't matter what I'd helped Dell do because I'd clearly been bandit material long before I'd joined him. It was what I was built for- it was all I had in me. I wasn't all that  _good_ at it, but it was who I was, which explained so many things about me all at once that it made my head hurt.

But then I passed wagon after wagon while exciting the city, Max shambling along in front of me with Zieg striding tall and stiffly in front of him, and every face looked the same. They were drawn and tired and absolutely terrified, and I didn't like the unpleasant wriggle in my chest when I saw it.

I couldn't wait to put on my claws.

I nagged about it until Zieg finally relented and let me pull them out of one of Max's saddlebags. There was no trace of blood across the knuckles, he'd seen to that, but I fancied I could still feel it flaking between my fingers. I flexed the leather as I walked, mindful of patrols, and doubly mindful of the fact that Max was very friendly, and undoubtedly very loyal, but had exceedingly loose bowels and that walking behind him required a certain amount of caution.

I felt better, even so. They were armor and weapons and memory all in one, and they soothed the itch at the back of my head, the slight buzz of hornets. I put them on, and I was able to shove everything else to the back of my mind.

Zieg watched, and seemed to come to some sort of decision on his own. He belted the Commander's sword to his side, no matter how bothersome the constant banging against his legs when he walked must have been. He moved naturally with it, and had a long, loping stride that would have undoubtedly covered a lot of ground if he hadn't had me pulling up the rear.

It also didn't help that Max had a habit of plucking affectionately at his back with his tiny, rodent-like hands while he walked, and every so often, when we stopped for a rest, he'd drape his heavy head over his shoulder and heave a lovelorn sigh. Zieg put up with it stoically. I, on the other hand, periodically  _hurt myself laughing._

It was cold. It was  _bone_ cold. The last of the greenery had truly vanished from the low, scraggly clearcuts surrounding Neet, and all that left was the dark, forbidding evergreen trees that lurked further on. The road was empty- doubly so now that word was spreading to the provinces of Mille Seseau that Dell's gang had upped their ante, and a low pallor of fog drifted dully across the landscape.

The beginning hike was bleak and wet and extremely chilly. It was  _way_ too early in the morning to be doing any of this, but I was damned if I was putting on that hat. The wool lining of my new coat itched like mad already. I considered taking it off altogether, but was concerned that Zieg would take it personally.

We had still yet to enter the forest proper, and despite the fact that the extensive tree cutting meant that we had a clear view for miles, I didn't feel any less ill at ease. Or make our plan to catch Dell out and ask him very nicely for Zieg's rock and my cousin back seem any less criminally stupid;

There was an awkwardness between us that was becoming clearer as the morning went on. A sort of broken-toothed feeling where you have to force yourself not to probe it with your tongue. I wanted very much to ask him every single question under the sun, but knew without a doubt that he was not the sort of person who wouldn't respond in kind. I wouldn't ask him about his no doubt illustrious career as a soldier in some war I'd probably never heard of, and he wouldn't ask me about what the hell I was doing dogging the steps of the most notorious bandit in Mille Seseau. It was a good arrangement.

We walked on, in the cold and the damp, and I tried hard not to think about Miles and Bellamy and that yellow bastard, Gasche, lurking somewhere in the trees ahead, and tried doubly hard not to think about the last time Zieg had led me through the forest, when I hadn't known him and hadn't thought him worth much.

Mostly I thought about why I was doing this. Why he was doing this, and what that rock had to mean to him to have to get it back this badly.

The cold made my still-healing nose feel tighter than ever, but it eased some of the throbbing. As I walked, I felt like a badly-put-together wooden version of myself, and my breakfast sat low and hard in my stomach.

"How far away to Magrad?" I asked, walking up next to the Runner. Max's eyes were large, brown, and guileless, and swept the landscape every so often as if searching for predators. Or true love. Or whatever concerned him most.

Zieg didn't so much as blink. "Assuming the cold doesn't get it, the bandits don't get us, and the wild beasts don't get us," he said while I rolled my eyes in the back because of how much he sounded like an  _old lady._ "… I don't know," he admitted. "It used to be…. Several days away from the Crystal city."

I wrinkled my nose. "Uh. You mean Deningrad?"

"…Yes." he said stiffly, and then something in his face changed so I didn't press further.

I rested a hand on Max's shoulder as we walked, trying to get used to the blank wall of sheer weirdness Zieg threw up every so often. But then something touched the back of my memory and I said drily, "If we run into those tree things again, I'm leaving."

I peeked up at him from under my eyelashes. His lips quirked upwards.

"They've gone to ground for the winter." he said, brisk and remote. "We're no longer in any danger from them."

"Oh  _thank_ you," I said. "I'd like to make at least one of these trips without getting attacked by something."

The dim, grey light of overcast sky made his features inscrutable. "It's really the bears we need worry about."

"…. Uh," I said.

"And the jewel-eyes," he continued. "Those become more active in winter."

The bird things, I remembered with a small shudder. "What,  _seriously?"_

"And the wolves. And the occasional vampire shrew." he said.

I realized then that he was winding me up and made an annoyed swipe at him with my claws, which he sidestepped easily. Max regarded me with wide-eyed horror, and gave a small, dismayed honk.

I kept walking, almost regretting my decision to put my claws on, since it meant I couldn't shove my hands into my pockets to warm them up. Because of this, I was deep in thought and nearly banged straight into Zieg's outstretched arm.

Face unreadable, he thrust the lead rope in my direction. "You lead him," he said as I took it, confused. Max's eyes went round with betrayal as he clutched anxiously at Zieg's sleeve. I could almost see his thoughts.  _Don't give me to the short one. I'll be true. We can run away together._

I took the rope slowly. "Why? Don't you like him?"

"…I have no feelings on the matter."

"You bought him. He's carrying all of our stuff. You have to like him."

"It's your turn," he said flatly, and forged on ahead, hands disappearing into his coat.

I shrugged at Max, who regarded me coldly with one brown eye. It was clear that I didn't have what it took to inspire his undying affection. I rolled my eyes, and followed Zieg.

We continued like this for a few miles. The sore spot behind my ear ached fiercely as I walked, and drowned out the myriad of complaints coming from the rest of me. Zieg moved as stiffly as ever, but that didn't worry me as much as it used to. He touched the hilt of his sword every so often as he walked, and some looseness seemed to come back into his stride when he did.

Honestly though, at least we were on a road this time, and not bushwhacking through the-

Zieg stopped a few yards ahead of me, and stared critically into the small, tree-lined crick that split off from our way. "We're leaving the road," he said.

"What?  _Why?_ " I asked, determinedly hauling Max behind me, but Zieg was already picking his way down the slope leading to the water and clearly not listening to any arguments. "Through the  _water?"_

"You know why," came his answer from down below. "Don't walk on the banks."

"What,  _bandits?_ We aren't targets! We're two guys and a… a Max," I said. Max gave me a flat look that spoke of impending rebellion. I sighed and jerked his rope, and he followed reluctantly. I nearly killed myself when I turned my ankle on a grass clod. "And in case you forgot, we're trying to  _find_ the bandits!"

"The patrols still haven't forgotten about us. We're safer this way," he said, and then he just walked right on into the freezing water like it was nothing.

I wavered on the edge, hissing in my breath. "Just-  _ugh!_ I only have so many socks! You didn't buy me enough socks _!"_

He wasn't listening. I briefly considered calling it good, walking back to the city and turning myself into the guard, but then Max deliberately pushed me from behind in an effort to rejoin his one true love, and I sloshed in anyway.

"It isn't for long, anyway," came Zieg's voice from up ahead. "Just a half mile or so, to avoid leaving a trail."

"We weren't leaving a trail!  _We were on a trail!"_

We slogged through that crick for what felt like far more than half a mile. It wasn't really that terrible- we mostly stepped from rock to rock, navigating our way upstream. In a way, I could see his thinking, but damnit, every time I slipped and dunked a boot into that icy water, I felt like murdering someone.

The sky was growing darker overhead, dark grey clouds surging up from the south. If we were back home, I would have said it looked like monsoon season was upon us, but for the moment I just hoped that it wasn't going to rain.

He called a rest once we finally left the water, and graciously allowed me the opportunity to dig in the saddlebags until I located a pair of dry socks to replace my sopping ones. Max lay down heavily the stream bank and seemed more than pleased when Zieg deigned to sit less than two feet away, and gave him mournful looks through his long princess eyelashes.

I grumbled something about blatant favoritism as I parked on a rock and began pulling my boots off.

We were in the forest proper by this point, in a stand of scrubby alder that surrounded the crick bed. Everything was in dreamy shades of green and grey, with that boiling grey sky looming overhead. Our breath steamed out in clouds. Zieg finally had some color in his cheeks, spots of red high up under each eye. He moved less stiffly than he had before, despite his own set of bruises, and overall seemed more relaxed than he had in the city.

Zieg watched, his face expressionless as I wrestled the sock off of my cold, white foot and began rubbing some heat into it. "I'm wondering something," he remarked, his tone neutral and his hands resting on top of his knees.

"Are you wondering what basic procedure is for amputating frozen toes? Because I'm also wondering that," I groused. "I swear, you could snap mine off at the base," I muttered, grimly trying to restore feeling to my feet.

"…. Why did you join Hiram Dell?" he asked quietly, looking straight at me.

I paused in unrolling my new socks, stung.

Ridiculously, I thought,  _and we were doing so_ well.

He didn't make any move to show that he recognized my reluctance, only shifted in his seat as he continued his mild line of inquiry. "He's a madman," he continued casually. "Reports have been coming in for years. Even if he did know the whereabouts of your cousin, what on earth made you think that he would just lead you to him?"

"Your cousin may already be dead," he added, when I said nothing.

I sat there with my head bowed, a half-rolled sock in my hand, and thought about why he had to go and do something like that. The throbbing behind my ear increased, and I bit my lip.

I felt betrayed, almost, by this sudden turn to cruelty, but I shrugged it off. "Yeah? Well he might have already hucked your rock off a bridge. Don't you think we ought to at least find out?" I asked, my voice low.

"I'm not referring to that." he said. "I still wish to know."

Silence descended, and for a moment there, all that could be heard was the high, distant calling of crows through the trees. Max looked from one of us to the other, looking confused. Seemingly without any better ideas, he twisted around to whuffle moistly near Zieg's head.

Zieg seemed to come to some sort of decision then, and his shoulders relaxed. Choosing his words delicately, he said, "I suppose, what I actually wish to know is…. You walked up to the most casual, remorseless killer operating in Mille Seseau today, and simple asked to  _enlist?"_

Despite myself, I barked a laugh, and finished pulling on my dry sock. "It wasn't like that," I said gruffly. "…He bought me a drink first."

Zieg grinned. A quick, sharp thing, and the sudden tension around us relented a little.

I yanked my boot on, and laced it up with hands that did not shake. "Besides," I said, trying as hard as I could to sound cool and detached. "What makes you think I'm not a killer?"

I didn't look at him.

He paused then, and despite myself, I watched him out of the corner of my eye while lacing up my other boot.

He shrugged eventually, and he didn't question it. He held his hands loosely on top of his knees, long fingers tangled awkwardly together. "But not lacking in remorse," he said, voice soft.

It took a moment for that to sink in, but I felt it like a blow to the face when it did.

I felt something hot and ugly pulse in my chest, and found myself on my feet before I could even think. I was reminded, forcibly, of Hiram Dell. Sliding his arms around my waist only to prod at my bandages. A sucker punch to the kidneys, that left me reeling and furious. He didn't move, despite the fact that my fingers were curled into fists and I'd never felt more like  _belting him_ in my life.

He started, visibly. He looked surprised, and halfway rose to his feet with one hand reached out like he meant to take me by the arm, and I heard a quick, stuttered, "Claire, I'm-" but I didn't listen. I stalked past him, heading away from the crick bed. I wasn't thinking. I was reacting. And in the absence of anything other than thought, my reaction has only  _ever_ been to run.

I don't know how far he would have let me go on my own if something hadn't made me stop dead in my tracks a few yards away.

I looked up.

The mountains seemed nearer than I'd ever seen them. They were frosted white, and the surrounding trees were stark and black against the angry grey sky. I felt small, and cold, and sick with anger, but the feeling faded in my bones as I saw the first flakes drift down from the sky.

The air was cold enough to make my cheeks burn. I gulped, my fingers clenching and clenching in their leather and iron shell.

I heard him behind me, shifting uncomfortably in the snow. But then, he took a step forward. With a soft chuck, he urged Max up as well, and walked slowly towards me. He stopped a few feet behind and waited.

I kept my eyes fixed on the sky, my breath caught, as the snow settled like ash on my hair and shoulders. It was so soft I barely felt it.  _I read about this but I never thought…._

I turned slowly, my anger faded until I only felt awkwardness in its wake.

Zieg stood there, the lead rope in one hand and snow already dusting his coat. He sort of cold and pink in the nose in the cheeks, but for the moment, not unhappy. Uncomfortable, maybe. Tired, always. But not unhappy.

He was holding out the hat.

I supposed that was all the apology I was going to get.

I took it.

**0.-0.-0**

For the record, I thought we should keep going until it got dark, but Zieg had the stupid idea to stop and set up camp before the sun went down. I argued stridently for a good ten minutes while he stood there and nodded seriously and began unloading Max without so much as a word. I felt this was unfair course of action, but then he went and started the fire with one swipe of the flint and I realized that I'd been hiking through a snowy forest all day and was down to only one pair of dry socks.

He was good enough to let me sit by the fire and dry the rest while he picketed the Runner several yards away from the fire where he could browse for the night.

It had stopped snowing shortly after it had started, to my great disappointment. By the time the skies cleared, only the merest half inch or so of snow covered the ground. We were settled in a wooded hollow in the foothills of the mountains leading up to Kashua. Or at least that's what he said. I, personally, had no idea where we were, other than that it was cold and woodsy and not currently on fire.

A bundle thumped down by my side. I blinked, halfway through draping my socks across a nearby rock.

Zieg dropped his on the opposite side of the fire, and sat down stiffly on the soft carpet of fir needles that made up our camp. The firelight turned his hair to gold and vanished the lines under his eyes. He still tended to send me these inscrutable looks that I chose to interpret as apologetic.

He was doing better, all in all. He didn't brood, and he didn't lapse into the kind of silences I'd grown to dread, distinguishable only from his usual silences by virtue of the fact that his usual silences always had an air of refusing to participate, rather than being unable to.

I twisted around and inspected the bundle. Sleeping furs, by the look of it, with a thin groundsheet to go with it. "You bought these?"

He nodded vaguely, stirring some grains into a pot places near the hottest part of the coals. He added a handful of dried meat, which would offset the sheer blandness of the meal. "I found us enough supplies to make it there and back," he said. "Food, however, might prove difficult. We may need to see what we can hunt as we go."

I squinted at him. "What, hunt, like  _catch_ something? How the hell am I going to catch something we can eat?" I lifted my hands, my claws still strapped on. "What am I gonna do, punch it to death?"

He ignored me. But I noticed that he refrained from adding any more of our dried meat to the pot, and carefully stowed it back in his pack.

I busied myself with removing my claws, bundling them up awkwardly and setting them down beside me. Hissing in my breath a little, I flexed my fingers. Stiff, but useable.

It was a little stupid to go the whole day wearing them, I'll admit, but they made me feel better. They were the only tools I really knew how to use. Zieg was the same way. He didn't _need_ to spend the whole day with that sword strapped to his hip; he just did.

In other words, we were both morons. But well armed ones, nonetheless.

I looked over our camp, kneading my hands to take some of the stiffness out. We had our sleeping furs, and enough food and cooking supplies to last us for a good while. I caught the gleam of the bought magic bottles from a half-open saddlebag. "Musta set you back some," I murmured

He shrugged, still bent over our meal. He seemed different, this close to the fire. His eyes were sluggish, reflecting orange from the flames. He sat as close as he could without risking being burned, but then again, so was I. The flames seemed to flare up a little when he moved closer, as if with puppyish enthusiasm. I grinned, watching. "A fire kid, huh?"

His eyes flicked over to mine, his mouth a flat line, and I wondered what I said. But then, after a bit of a pause, he nodded.

"I was born thunder," the sudden rush of relief making my words come out too quickly and too bright. "Both parents, too."

He looked down and I went quiet again, not the least because I'd gone and let something slip again. It seemed like every time I locked something down, something else squirmed through the bars. It made my palms sweat. And then I remembered another night, warmed by another fire.  _Twenty on dark, thirty of water_ and then my thoughts froze into something solid and impenetrable and  _black._

I jumped when his arm came into my view, a dented tin bowl of hot oats and meat in his hand. I took it without speaking, and began to eat.

I watched him surreptitiously as I managed my spoon awkwardly in my beat-up hands.

The fire chased the shadows out of Zieg's face, and turned his skin almost ruddy. I didn't know what I was so worried about- he was perfectly normal. He'd been fine, all day, except for that brief moment when we'd left the stream when he'd pressed a sore spot until blood welled up. He was  _quiet_ , sure, but that was hardly a new development.

The problem was that I'd never been all that good at keeping quiet. And like it or not, I didn't really feel I owed it to him to let him keep his.

I took a bite. Chewed, swallowed, then quirked my lips. "All this from fighting for money?"

He looked uncomfortable, which gave me a weird feeling of satisfaction. Uncomfortable was better than nothing.

"I mean, I can believe it," I said, relenting a little. "I haven't had my ass kicked like that in years. You're  _good_."

He smiled, softly. Ruefully, almost. "I was, perhaps, a little distraught at the time," he hedged, scratching the back of his neck. But there was a little more light coming from him now, as if reminding him that he was a swordsman put some steel back into his spine.

I snorted. "Yeah? You should try for it more often. Should come in handy once we run into Dell."

He grimaced. "I'm still not convinced of the sureness of this plan. What exactly is going to keep him from killing us on first sight?"

I shrugged. "Keep him talking, as far as I can see. He likes a show." My tongue went heavy in my mouth as soon as I said that, and I looked away.

The conversation, that had begun pretty well all things considered, dropped in its tracks. I didn't like thinking about Dell, not here. Or about what waited for us up ahead.

Gamely, I tried to steer us back to what worked before. "So, seriously, where was this going on and where can I get into it? I could use the cash, once I get back to the city," I said, digging into my food. Really, maybe I ought to take over the cooking from here on out. Even if I had to punch a few rabbits to death.

"There's always places that have it. Everywhere. You just need to sink low enough."

His voice had changed. Gone deeper, and remote, like last night, and I realized that his false, soft smile and careful deflection from before had been his attempt to avoid the topic. But then I'd blundered us right back into it again, and the strain that he'd carefully buried all day bubbled right back up to the surface.

I was ready to beat a retreat. Ready to smile bright and nervous and get up to go check on Max if I needed to when he gave me the surprise of my life by speaking again.

"I was young," he said, looking at the fire. "I did not choose it. It was a choice placed upon me." He took a deep, shaking breath, and visibly calmed himself. I watched, eyes wide and my food forgotten as he closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, his face was still. "I was… obliged by circumstance. Then, as now. I made my superiors a great deal of coin," he added, a note of bitterness creeping in. But then he looked up at me, and I caught his eyes, and he looked guilty and uncertain, and I realized then, that this was his apology to me. For earlier, when he'd rummaged around in my past for his own reasons. A peace offering, pain for pain, story for story.

"Doesn't sound so bad," I murmured, and immediately afterwards I would have slit my throat to be able to take those words back.

He didn't quite snarl, but it was close. "I killed. I killed. My comrades killed. If we did not kill, we were killed. A simple life. Not a good one." His mouth snapped shut afterwards, as if he hadn't meant to go that far.

I stared at my food once more, and bit my tongue.

I watched him. He set his jaw, and willed himself back to calm. "But then," he said, his words slow. "I freed myself, and fought for a time in better company, and never looked back. Until now."

He descended back into brooding silence once more, and dug into his food.

In the sudden renewed quiet I could hear Max just beyond our camp, browsing on what remained of the withered vegetation. Zieg had made him a present of a nosebag of oats earlier in the evening, which had done nothing to stave off the barrage of heart-stricken looks the Runner sent him every waking moment. Of course,  _I'd_ gone over to brush him down at Zieg's request, and had received only a cool sideways glance. The nerve.

 _Shit,_ I thought, as slow and sluggish as a winter-starved crick, trying to pick apart his last words.  _All the man_ did  _was look back._

Rolling my shoulders, I set my empty bowl down on the fir needles, and took on a tone I hoped seemed casual. "You're wasting your breath telling a bruiser like me not to take it up. Sounds like fun." I grinned a little to back it up.

He jabbed his spoon into his bowl, and sounded reassuringly dry. "Trust me. You have better prospects." He swept his blue eyes dismissively over me. "…Most of which escape me at the moment."

Despite the sting of annoyance, I found myself relaxing. He'd pulled himself back together faster this time. An improvement, to say the least.

"I was… trained," he said after a long silence, and my smile faded. His words came faster now, and it made me snap my mouth shut as tight as I could just so I wouldn't risk interrupting. "Molded to do one thing and one thing only." He shifted, retreating deeper into his coat. "It's a poor thing, to base the rest of your life on what others tried to shape you into," he murmured almost as an afterthought.

I didn't flinch, not quite. But then he shot a look towards me, thoughtful, and I wondered belatedly what my face must look like just then.

I made of show of pulling my own coat tighter around my shoulders. It wasn't entirely an act- I hadn't been warm once, the whole day. "And you, what are your prospects?" I asked, still trying gamely to wrench this conversation back to less treacherous ground. "Whatcha going to do once we get your rock back and persuade Dell not to kill us both?"

He snorted. "I doubt there will be much in the way of persuasion." He ran his eyes over me once again, and seemed almost less impressed than earlier. "Especially with you involved."

"Oh, right, I'm sorry. Maybe we can just, you know. Sit there. Let him use us for target practice for a while until it makes him feel bad," I lobbed right back, which earned me nothing more than a scathing glance that made me  _grin._

It was a relief, actually, to hear him dig casually at me like that again. It was firmer ground for both of us, despite the mild sting in his words. This newer version of Mullet didn't feel the need to play nice anymore, but I'd been disqualified for too many fouls years ago. It worked.

I could have left it at that, really. Declined another bowl of that slush he'd served up and curled up in my sleeping furs for the night.

But, knowing me, something dark and cautious crept into my mind and I really looked at him, there in the firelight. His collar drawn up around his neck like armor, and that pleasant, meaningless half-smile still on his face.

"No, really," I said quietly. "What's in store for you after all this?"

It was a bald, bland question, but to give him credit, he actually seemed to consider it. Then his face went very still, as if it was caught in the midst of an idea that he didn't like prospects of very much at all. It was like walking into a room, un-haunted these many years, and suddenly you look up and see the ghosts in the walls again like they'd never left.

In the end, he scraped idly at the bottom of his bowl and said smoothly, "I hadn't thought about it."

…And the thing is, I bet he hadn't. The thought was so strange, like he'd been bouncing around this stupid, frozen country getting robbed and attacked and thrown into jail and busted out again without giving thought to what he was going to do when things went back to normal. Whatever normal for him was.

In short, it was almost as if he was just as deluded and immature as I was. Which was a terrifying prospect all on its own once I devoted some thought to it.

He looked like he didn't  _know._

I mulled over this for a moment or two. The fire had died down, the wood slowly collapsing into coals. His eyes were slowly drawn back to the flames, as if despite himself.

Eventually, I asked, "What about your stone? I mean, that's the reason you're here, right? It's the reason you're trying to find Dell just as bad as I am."

"It's a relic," he said automatically, without thinking. "It should have died with me. It has no place here. And it's… dangerous in the wrong hands."

Black gods help me, I didn't have anything I could say to that. Not a word.

His face shuttered up after that as he realized, like me, that his efforts hadn't prevented a fatal slip. He locked up as tight as a tomb.

After the longest pause of my life, he said, "An end. That's all I desire." My head snapped up, my voice caught in my throat. "Nothing more than an end," he added, so quietly it was barely a murmur.

I stared at my useless hands, clenched tight in my lap. I tasted blood, and realized that I was shredding the inside of my cheek. I forced myself to relax my jaw.

In a low, dangerous voice, I said, "Quit that now. Else I might say something I'll regret in the morning."

I'd hoped that I'd made it clear before. I'd kick his ass halfway to Deningrad and back before I let him sink that far again. He was no good to me like that. No good at all.

He wasn't me. He wouldn't use his guilt and his grief to catapult into the great unknown, dragging destruction behind him. He'd use it as an excuse to let him rust him into his tracks, and I wouldn't  _let him._

My voice jerked him out of it, and his head raised quickly. He looked at me and smiled bleakly. There was an apology there somewhere, a certain sheepishness in his eyes. He cleared his throat, and thankfully recovered himself. "And you? Why do you need to find your cousin?" he asked, his voice deep and removed, as if it were just one more casual inquiry,

It raised my hackles all the same. I looked away, the muscle in my jaw tensing before I could stop it.  _…An answer for answer. I owe him that,_ I thought.

_I can do this._

I stared at my hands once more, and tasted blood in my teeth. There was a rising sense of dread in my bones, but I squashed it back down in the dark where it belonged.

I smiled faintly, and raised one hand to unsteadily tuck my hair behind my ears. "He's all I got," I said with an indifference I didn't feel, but needed more than ever. "I mean. He's the one person on this whole sorry continent that I know."

I reached over suddenly, and pulled my claws into my lap. Their weight steadied me, and I ran my fingers clumsily over the metal plates on the armguard as I tried to dredge up the words. "I just have to get to him, that's all. It doesn't matter what happens after that. I get to him. I talk to him. And that's it." My lip twitched. "I just got to keep Dell from stringing him up for the crows before I get there," I added, trying to be funny and failing utterly because it ran too close to the truth to be funny. Zieg was right. I didn't have any evidence that Dell hadn't just killed him already, other than the dim suspicion that Dell wouldn't kill him if I wasn't there to scream.

Zieg looked at me, not at the fire. He nodded slowly, just once, and Soa help me, I nearly hated him for it.

But that faded, and left only a miserable weight in its place.

It wasn't quite the verbal fights we'd had before. The saw-edged exchange of questions that neither of us could answer, meant to shock and to hurt. We both edged onto territory we didn't want crossed, but this time, we gave. It hurt, hurt us both something awful, but we gave.

I brought myself back under control. "Sides," I said, slipping my hand inside one of my claws once more and idly tightening the straps. I kept my eyes focused on my work, and my voice was steady. "If you had only one person in this whole stupid world that you knew, wouldn't you stick with them?"

He absorbed that for a long moment, his head bowed. But then he made a small noise, either in acknowledgement or agreement. "I suppose I might," he conceded, and stared into the fire.

**0.-0.-0**


	18. Chapter 18

"You struck in anger."

I felt rancid with sweat. He was leading me through a sparring match, tight lipped and dismissive as he'd ever been. I opened my mouth, about to say that of  _course_ I'd struck in anger, I'd been striking from anger just as a result of being  _around him_ for more than ten minutes at a time, and anyways I'd been stuck out here in this stupid patch of abandoned jungle for three days while  _normal_ people lead normal lives fishing and chatting and having, I dunno,  _boyfriends,_ but he cut me off.

"Have you learned  _nothing?"_

Dad sounded actually pissed. Not weary and disappointed like he always was with me these days, but  _shaken_. He turned on me, and I would rather split my own kneecaps open than admit that I took a step back, but I did.

When he spoke, he was slow, and damning. "Your fists reflect what in in your heart," he said. "If your heart is rotten, if you're so clouded by emotion that you can't see clearly, then your blows will be as well." He started pacing, one hand held up to his temple. He stopped, and gestured at me. "What do you think this power is  _for?_ " 

He ran right past whatever I was going to respond to that with. "Just now," he said, referring to the point where he'd brought the entire lesson to a screeching halt. "That was a blow made in anger. This is a blow made without clarity, without thought, and it reflects poorly on  _me_ that you would dare to make it."

 _What clarity?_ I wanted to snarl.  _What chance did I ever have to think clearly?_

I looked at my feet instead.

Slowly, he said, "If I had thought that you were going to take the same disastrous path as Gehrich, I would never have started training you."

Tears shot into my eyes, quick and treacherous, and just as treacherously, my one hand came back to scrub them off my face. He watched, expressionless. Disgusted, I think, at my own weakness.

Then he turned and walked away.

I remained. I stared at the jungle floor, gulping, gathering back the tattered scraps of my self-control. He hadn't made me break like that in ages, but it hurt just as bad each time, if not worse, given what it even took for him these days for him to manage it.

I clenched my hands, and I stood there as long as it took for me calm down. I wished that I was the sort of person who could pull myself back together after moments like these, but I wasn't, and I never would be.

 

**0.-0.-0**

We found the statue halfway through the afternoon.

First we spend the better part of the day crawling up the side of a frozen mountain, skirting the sides of the massive glacier that fed into the Mille River. It hadn't snowed since that first day on the road, but Soa's tits, the magic was  _long_  gone. I was cold. I was always cold. Zieg  _might_ have been cold, but he'd stopped displaying emotions like the rest of us human beings a few days ago.

According to him, we were getting closer to the fort.

I still wished bitterly that we hadn't left the road. Max seemed to deal well with the snow and brush, but Zieg put his foot down when I tried to clamber up on top of him. In the meantime, I took to wearing two or three pairs of socks at once, and eventually, I stole some of Zieg's to put on my hands at night. He pretended not to notice.

We were doing better the last day or so. Maybe we'd rattled the hell out of each other too many times on that first day, and maybe the both of us had too much else on our minds to argue. We established a pattern. We walked. We ate. We slept.

Or I did, at least. Fitfully, and crawling with bad dreams like a cheap mattress with bedbugs. Zieg didn't. He hadn't ever since he'd caught sight of a few landmarks that he apparently recognized and his face had looked like a door slamming shut at the time. I suppose he could have slept  _sometime,_ but he never dropped off before I did, and I couldn't even remember seeing him close his eyes. He looked  _grey_.

He tried. Honestly, he did. He didn't shut down like he had in Neet, and I could see him forcing himself to keep talking, and to keep responding when I prodded him. It would have been sort of sweet, if it hadn't hit me like a rock to the gut every time I saw him blanking out.

On that particular morning, I'd finally caught him sleeping late. I'd woken up shaking, mostly from cold, and partially from the long, rambling dream I'd had where Dell smiled like a knife and black-winged gulls wheeled overhead, and there he'd been on the other side of the fire, sleeping like a corpse.

He slept with his brows drawn down, the hard line of his mouth softened in sleep. His eyelids were so dark they looked nearly bruised. I waited until I had breakfast ready (and only slightly charred) before I woke him, sinking my hand into his furs to shake his shoulder.

He jerked violently when I did, and his hand shot out and closed on my arm, his fingers digging in. When he opened his eyes, he looked confused more than anything. I made a mental note that Zieg was grabby as hell when his guard was down, and it probably came from deep-set personality problems.  _Well-raised_ people kept their hands to themselves. His expression changed slightly to dismay when I grinned wolfishly at him anyway and said, "Rise and shine."

He didn't even bug me about breakfast being burnt. That bothered me more than anything.

And then we reached the top of a high, mountain ridge where things leveled out a little, and in a clear, treeless patch sat an ancient, crumbling statue the size of a two-story house.

I didn't see it at first. I was walking behind Zieg, dragging Max behind me, and then I'd smacked straight into his back, nose first. The ensuing  _swearing fit_ where I dropped to my knees with one hand clamped over my face took over the next few minutes. But then the black spots cleared from my eyes, and I looked up and there it was.

"Huh," I said, squinting at it through my watery eyes. "It's a…. snake. Man. Thing. What the hell is it doing up here?"

He didn't answer. Max pulled vaguely at his rope, lips straining to reach a tuft of dried grass peeking out of the snow. I let him jerk my arm sideways, one hand still checking to make sure I hadn't knocked my nose out of place.

"…It's a dragoon," he said, still unmoved from where he'd stopped, his eyes fixed dully on the statue.

I perked up. "Oh! I read about those."

He flashed me a startled glance. His cheeks were red and wind-burned, and it was the first time I'd seen him react to something all day. "What did you read?" he asked slowly.

I shrugged, yanking half-heartedly on Max's lead rope to get him to stop pulling my arm off. "I dunno, the usual. I mean, there's a couple different versions. I always heard the one where whatshisname, Diaz, and his seven sons, and they go to the…. Thing. In the place." I scratched the back of my neck, grimacing. "Hum de dum, trials of strength and virtue, something about a princess? My book was kind of moldy, so I never really caught the end."

He frowned. Bizarrely, he looked like he'd just bitten into a lemon. "Diaz had no children."

"Whatever. I think I read a version once where he knocked up a dragon queen and had seven weird half-dragon kids. And hey presto, Dragon War." I wrinkled my brow. "I dunno, maybe the Wingees got jealous?"

"Winglies," he said tersely.

"Whatever. Look,  _quit,_ " I snapped, lurching as Max shouldered into me trying to get to a few yellowing leaves next to my shoulder. "It's just a story," I said, trying to decide if I could still feel my feet.

He turned, muttering something mildly incomprehensible about history and educational standards and I swear,  _the only reason_ I didn't hear him say something about kids these days was because he trailed off and started fidgeting with his coat sleeves again.

I rolled my eyes. "Well  _yeah, real_ history. Shit, these are  _bedtime_ stories. Next thing you know you'll be asking about the Moon Child and the oogey-boogey Black Monster. No princesses, though. Sorry."

He turned back, looking puzzled. "The what?"

I made a noise of disgust, and walked over towards the statue, Max lumbering reluctantly behind me. It towered over the both of us, a grey, indistinct figure wrapped in a series of serpentine coils. The face had been worn away over time, and what was left was obscured with snow and lichen.

"Looks kinda mad," I said, squinting at it again.

"They were all mad," he said sharply.

When I looked back, startled, he was staring off up into the mountains, his mouth thin. He looked a little cracked around the edges, but then he took in a breath. I saw him try.

When he spoke, he sounded calmer. "We're getting close."

His hand closed on his sword hilt, knuckles white.

I nudged him. It was all I could think to do, and he rocked back on his toes. More of a lurch, really, all of his swordsman's grace gone. I grinned at him anyways, despite how suddenly uncertain I felt. "Good," I said. "Can we stop for lunch?"

"…No," he said flatly, and that was the end of it.

 

**0.-0.-0**

I wish we'd run into Dell then. Or a bear, or one of those in-all-likelihood-completely-imaginary-on-Zieg's-part vampire shrews. Anything, really.

My hands hurt.

They'd gotten worse over the last few days. The cold made them feel brittle, and they were fairly useless in the mornings unless I wrapped them around a mug. I'd asked him if he'd brought any tea and he'd said no, and then I'd asked him if he'd at least brought any sugar and he'd blinked at me like I was a crazy person, and that's when I started drinking plain hot water after waking up.

We stopped for a meal break on a high, flat plateau an hour or so after finding the statue. Zieg was still shaken. I thought he'd shrugged it off, in the wake of my, ahem,  _historical monologue_ , but then he'd start tapping his hands anxiously on the side of his leg, or raising a hand to comb his hair back, his hair soon growing rumpled and wild under the treatment.

He didn't eat his lunch, a cold, dry hank of meat folded into a piece of bread; he just sat with it, staring ahead like he was either eager to keep moving, or dreading it.

I could barely manage mine. I wore my claws all through the day, which didn't leave much room for any kind of protection for my fingers. It got to the point where I was so clumsy with my hands that I had to take my claws off if I wanted to do anything technical like eat or unbutton my coat, and I came all over twitches without my claws.

I flexed my fingers a few times, and considered shoving them into my armpits for a few minutes just to get the circulation back. But then I thought better of it and started strapping on my rusty iron claws once more. We didn't have time for this, and Zieg was apt to start slipping further over the edge with every passing minute.

"Stop that," said Zieg suddenly.

It was the first distinct thing he'd said in hours. I raised an eyebrow dubiously, yanking the straps home.

"I know. I'll be done in a sec. Eat your lunch," I replied, a little more curtly than perhaps was needed. I  _knew_ we were on a fairly tight schedule, but it didn't mean he needed to boss me around that much.

"No," he said, shaking his head and rising quickly to his feet. "Your hands. I should have remembered. I apologize."

I frowned, studying him. He seemed tense. Tenser, if that was even possible. There was something a little haggard around his eyes, and he was looking at me entirely too closely to be comfortable.

He sounded clearer, but there was still too much of an edge too him.

"Why?" I said, confused, but he was already arm-deep in one of the saddlebags, Max plucking hopefully at his sleeve with his lips. His hand emerged with a small crock of some kind, wrapped in what looked like a spare shirt. I would have protested further, but then he was sitting companionably down next to me on my log and was staring meaningfully at my hands.

"Take your gauntlets off," he said when I didn't move.

I narrowed my eyes at him, and without thinking tugged my hands a little closer to my body. "No. And they're not gauntlets."

His jaw tightened a little. "It's weighing on your mind. I can see it. I should have seen it earlier, but-" his mouth snapped shut, and he looked away. His guilt was plain. "I was… pre-occupied."

"I don't care. They're my hands. They're fine. Go sharpen your sword if you're that worried." Let's change that to grabby  _all the time,_ shall we?

He proffered the crock. "The woman, in the kitchen back in the inn. She made this up for you. She said it might help, when I inquired."

My eyebrows flew up. I didn't quite relax, but something inside me cheered up a little at the thought of his talking to her. I kind of wished I'd seen it.

"She made me eat. And then she made me promise to take better care of you." He frowned a little, prying the lid off. A strong smell of herbs and goose fat hit my nostrils. "I rather got the impression that her appraisal of you was limited."

" _Hey,"_ I said hotly, but then he went and started undoing the straps on my right gauntlet without so much as my say-so. I let him, largely because I was too surprised to react, and anything that could distract him from our doomed trek to Magrad was a good thing.

He was distracted, I realized. A little of the awful tension eased out of his shoulders a little as he unwound my clumsy attempt at re-bandaging.

"We should be moving on," I said as he picked up one of my battered hands, and only the last remaining strands of iron in my backbone kept me from snatching it away. A hiccup of alarm rose in my chest, baffling in its intensity. I shouldn't be letting him do this, I would rather he  _didn't,_ but just seeing him alert and interested in something was more than I'd come to hope for. He ignored me in any case, and I wondered half-heartedly if the swelling had gone down any.

It hadn't.

My joints were puffy and white, the bruising a greening map across my fingers. I swore thickly when I saw them, and I felt the rise of pressure behind my eyes that didn't bode well for _anybody._

"Hn," he said, turning my hand over and inspecting it. "It isn't as bad as I thought."

 _How fucking bad does it need to_ get _,_ I wanted to snarl, but I bit my tongue.

"…They're stiff," I said instead, feeling brittle. "I've had them get this bad a few times before, but they always cleared up within a couple of days. Can't hardly move 'em. Think I mighta busted 'em for good."

He made another small noise of acknowledgement. "They're not broken. It's just the cold." He turned it over again, small and ugly in his own long-fingered hands. "You've broken your hands before," he added, and it wasn't a question.

_Over and over again. Until I stopped flinching right before the strike._

I felt my shoulders tighten, and I wanted nothing so much as to yank my hands free and put my claws on again.  _Enough of this. He can play nursemaid to_ somebody else.

"Training," I said instead, and I felt the locks go down when I did. An odd sense of calm rose up within me. He'd had more than his share of my story as it was already. I wasn't going to give him any more. Hadn't said a peep to Dell, and I wouldn't for him.

He then surprised the hell out of me by flashing a sudden, uncertain smile. "I went through much of the same," he said.

For lack of anything better to do, I stared.

His smile perched on his lips like it wasn't quite sure what it was doing there. "Swords are tricky things," he said quietly, and then he let go of my hands and rolled up his sleeve. His forearm was lean and pale, and the back was scored with what I recognized as an array of old, faded defensive scars. Some were the work of swords, I recognized. Some more resembled claw marks.

My eyes drifted down his arms to his wrists, where I saw for the second time those shiny rings of scar tissue around his wrists. They cut so deeply into the flesh at some points that I halfway wondered how he'd retained the full use of those tendons.

He caught me looking. He nothing. Only regarded me, and he looked more like the man he'd been in Neet. Calm, A little sad. And present.

I flushed, dropping my eyes.

The words drifted up almost without my even thinking about them. "My dad. He, um. He told me this was the price we paid. Ugly hands, ugly work, that sort of thing." I smiled faintly. "After the fourth time I smashed in my knuckles training, I believed him."

"…It's the price we all play. But it proves worthy. In the end," he said after a moment, his voice neutral, and then he began spreading the salve on my hands. I let him, and ignored the renewed ache as the herbs slowly bit in.

I thought that was the end of it. I thought that it would end like all of our conversations tended to end, with both of us skirting around our pasts and carving bloody chunks out of which one of us intruded there, but then he gave me the surprise of my life by saying lightly, "… I was a very poor student."

I stared at him.

He looked up from his work, and that same rueful, lopsided smile crept across his face. "My… friend," he said. "The one who fought as you do. He said that I was too impersonal. That I needed to get closer if I wanted to do real damage."

Something in his expression soured a little. "Half of these are his work."

I snorted, and spoke before thinking. "He was right. You trust your reach too much. You keep everything so far at bay that you don't know whether to shit or go blind when it gets inside your sword arm." I grinned despite myself, remembering. "I nearly had you that time."

"Nearly," he said doubtfully, and his voice grew almost stern. "You commit too soon. And then you're so busy trying to reach that point that you're blind to anything coming in from the outside. After a while it was more interesting just watching you than trying anything else."

I narrowed my eyes. "Wait. You were going  _easy_ on me?"

Zieg looked nervous." Not… at first," he hedged. He shrugged. "And then it became more like a match than a proper fight. A contest. Which I won."

I found myself smiling, thinking about that ridiculous, heart-stopping,  _fun_ battle back in the Evergreen and how the fact that he was  _good_ had knocked me on my ass more than anything else. "Yeah," I said, dryly. "A-huh.  _Your_ team came out on top on that one."

He grinned foolishly, looking down at my hands again as he wrapped the one he'd treated back up into linen. My gut clenched a little just seeing it. It was a testament to how much strain he was under, that he was chuckling over something that had had him spitting mad only a few days ago.

It wasn't an especially safe thought.

I squinted at him, my shoulders relaxed from their previous tension. I found myself checking him, as I did so many times over this trip, just so see how far from okay he was now.

Pretty far, I'd say. But calm. Like a man with a gut wound, accepting the fact that this was something that would never heal.

He wasn't a particularly pretty man, I realized then.

That could have just been my islands blood talking-  _Gehrich_ was a real heartbreaker once he hit his growth spurt, and I wasn't shy about admitting that about my own cousin. Gehrich had an easy smile, bright, white teeth, thick black hair, and black eyes that yes, on occasion, were known to sparkle. Lotta'd sighed over him since she was thirteen. There'd been any number of other kids my age back home who looked more or less like Gehrich did, and if I'd had the time, I was sure I would have done some sighing on my own. My more recent adventures on the continent hadn't added much to the list, except maybe for Bellamy, who'd had a certain puppyish charm of his own, but it was safe to say that I knew what I was talking about. I mean, academically speaking.

Zieg had too much of an old man about him, despite the lack of lines of his face. Not to mention that at this particular moment, his eyes were verging on bloodshot, and his hair was a mess. There was nothing sleek or devil-may-care about him. He looked uncomfortable no matter where he was, and the only time he resembled my brave, sly, flashing cousin was when he had a sword in his hand.

Of course,  _Dell_ was the only man I'd ever met who'd given the impression of not giving two shits what the devil thought, so perhaps my checklist was a little skewed.

"…We need to get you in a fight," I said softly.

The breath left him in one rush as he immediately understood what I meant. A laugh of sorts. He didn't look up at me. "Yes," he said simply.

This close, I could see the slight tremor in his hands as he casually un-strapped my other armguard, my wrist palm-side up across his kneecaps. Mirasol's salve was warmed from his fingertips, and he worked it in absently as he tried to find the words.

The cold was making its way down through my coat again, and despite myself, I shivered.

"I'm not," he said, then stopped. "We're close. I can feel it. I don't know if I can…. " I remember, and I do not remember, and just when all feels indistinct it all comes flooding back. I will…" he said, words tumbling brokenly out of his mouth and then he looked up away from his work, and away from me, his sand-colored brows joined in furious concentration. "…try," he finished." To remain myself. To keep moving. But it is proving difficult."

Casually, he said, "I feel a little as if I am going mad."

I clamped my lips shut before my treacherous brain could burst out with,  _uh…. There there?_

He treated my other hand just as carefully. It didn't hurt, not really, and the salve sank into my bruises with a steady heat that soothed the gnawing ache that had been trapped there.

I wondered distantly if I was ever going to be any good at this. If my pain, if my family's pain had taught me one  _inch_ about dealing with someone else's.

He was me. Me stripped of all my stupid, flailing bravado and occasional delvings into grand larceny. And in the end, all I could offer him was what I offered to myself, day in and day out.

"Then we keep walking," I said, hoping that my smile didn't look as tired as I felt. "We keep walking, and… if you feel you're really going to lose it, then we find something you can hit."

He nodded. Looked at me for one second, then away, and let go of my hands. When I looked down, he'd already neatly tied off the bandage

I pulled on my claws once more, the water warped leather fitting smoothly onto my hands, the rusty tang of the iron hitting my nostrils. I jerked the straps home and hauled myself to my feet. I hurriedly crammed the rest of my lunch in my mouth as I headed over to Max, his breath steaming faintly in the grey afternoon light. His long ears pricked forwards as soon as he saw me coming, as if he was ready to get moving again.

"Claire."

I turned.

His voice was steady. Hard, even. I looked at him and saw the soldier again. "I am glad I am here. Doing this. I never would have, else. Some places need to be revisited."

I felt my mouth quirk. "Even though I ripped you off?" I asked, my words rough in my throat.

Zieg shook his head. "I was angry. Furious. It was the first… solid emotion I'd had since…"

He lifted his head, the wind stirring his hair faintly. The color had left his cheeks, leaving only the tired, red-rimmed blue of his eyes. "It goaded me into acting like I was a man, once more. Not…" He stopped, and blinked once. "So. I will thank you for that."

"…Nothing like a boot to the face to wake you up right," I said after a long moment.

I thought, oddly, of Keys at that moment. His easy teasing in the wake of our messy, sorrowful stories.

I missed him then. Fiercely.

Zieg laughed, a low sound in the sudden hush.

 

**0.-0.-0**

It didn't last.

His clarity diminished as the day ground on. He was visibly upset at times, his lips moving soundlessly as he scanned the horizon over and over again. He stalked ahead of me and Max, his hand latched around the hilt of his sword like it was the last nail holding him together.

The sun was fading by then, but he wouldn't stop to set up camp. We were so high by now that the snow reached halfway up my knees, and even Max started foundering during the odd dips in the terrain. My feet were cold, too cold, and my fingers started going numb at the tips, even wrapped as they were.

 _We made a mistake,_ I thought dully.

"We're close," he said once. And then, abruptly, his eyes gleaming like a cracked mirror, "The air currents, you see. The mountains make it difficult to fly in."

A lump of ice settled heavily into my stomach.

His shoulders were hunched down as low as I'd ever seen them. He would stop, whirl on his feet, and walk quickly in one direction, only to stop and choose another.

At one point he vanished into the trees ahead of me, and I had to shout and lurch after him, wallowing in the snow. When I caught up, he looked at me, startled, as if he'd forgotten I was even there, and then set off again just as quickly.

After a few more minutes of miserable walking, I stopped. "Zieg," I said, swallowing hard. "We have to stop and figure out where we are. "

The light was already so dim by that point that I had a hard time making him out in the gloom underneath the trees. Somewhere, farther away, I could hear a river. We were nearing the top of a long rise, the trees clearing out to reveal violently grey skies ahead. More snow was on the way.

 _If I don't get a hold of him now, Dell is going to kill us,_ I thought hollowly.  _If the cold doesn't first._

He was shivering. I was close enough to see it now. Uncontrollable tremors running up his arms and shoulders, his jaw clenched so tightly that the muscle showed stark in his grey face. Snow had started lazily drifting down again an hour or ago, and it had already melted in his hair. He looked like a drowning victim.

I thought about the inn. I thought about the effort I'd had to go through just to bring him back to me then, and knew,  _knew_ that I didn't have the strength I needed at that moment to bring him back to me now. I'd done this to him. I'd brought him here, after all, and he was splitting apart like a piece of cheap pig iron under the hammer.

"We're close," he said again, his eyes blank and glassy. "Frahma was a fool. He never thought to march his men here."

He smiled. A skewed, brittle thing.

He turned again and strode up the hill again, and I cried out, jerking the Runner's reins as I started laboriously forward. He couldn't do that while I was still here, I wouldn't let him. I'd sit him down, I'd force him to talk, I'd say anything. I'd remind him who he was. I'd  _hit_ him if I needed to.

I'd done this to him. This is what he'd been trying to prevent, before. He'd pulled up everything and retreated to the point where nothing could reach him. Eternal idiot that I was, I'd wrung a promise out of him that he'd never do it again, that he'd  _try,_ and this was the result. I doubt he could retreat like that again now if he wanted to. I'd done this to him, I thought again, but then I couldn't shake the cold, hollow that that this was too old and too large for me to have any part of whatsoever.

The sound of my voice made his head turn the barest bit. He was at the top of the hill. His lip was twisted in his teeth, his eyes wide and haunted, and he seemed about to stammer something else when the ground rotted from beneath his feet in an avalanche of mud, snow, and stone, tearing him away from my sight completely.

 

**0.-0.-0**


	19. Chapter 19

> " _We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in war."_  
> 
> 
> _\- Erich Maria Remarque_

**0.-0.-0**

> " _She had a strong will. She suffered by herself, and decided things by herself. She was a strong fighter, but her heart was too sweet."_  
> 

**0.-0.-0**

When it came down to it, what was the Rouge Art  _for?_

Back before all of this, I thought I'd known. Before I'd ever strapped a pair of claws to my arms and thought that that was what was going to make my Dad proud of me, before I'd run off from home, before I'd spent that first shivering night in Furni, and before I even thought about breaking that chair over that asshole's head, I thought I knew the answer. Or at least part of it.

Dad always knew. The Art was duty. It was history, it was tradition, it was the sole defining characteristic of our people, and to  _not_ learn it was a crime against your family. We studied it because we had always studied it, and you sweated and studied and beat your fists bloody learning every scrap that came your way because it was all that held us together.

Keys always said that it was about protecting your own, and that all the fancy side bits about naming your techniques and chopping rocks in half was just a way to pick up girls. The study, the discipline, and the endless struggle to hone your skill to a razor edge was to keep yourself primed and ready for when somebody came along to burn your house down and haul away your daughters- and then you  _fucked them up._ He'd said to me once that all the finicky bits came from living in relative peace for so long. Back in the early days of the islands, there weren't any hex hammers or dances of the five rings, there was just us, our families, and an ocean full of raiders. The rest? Gravy.

Lotta had always just grinned and said that it was  _fun,_ so why did it need a point?

It was a tool. That was what everyone stressed. It was a tool, and in the right hands, it could teach, it could protect, and it could really,  _profoundly_ mess somebody up. It relied solely on the skill of your hands and the strength of your heart.

In some ways, it could mean the difference between life and death.

In others, it was completely fucking useless.

**0.-0.-0**

It began to snow again.

Looking over the edge of the landslide revealed nothing more than a couple thousand pounds of mud, rocks, and uprooted trees slumping down through the darkness. After such an awful rush of sound, the quiet was damning.

He was dead. He'd been standing right there, gnawing himself hollow over trying to find that fucking dead city, and the next, he was gone. The ground ripped out from under him. Swallowed in mud.

The light was fading fast. We'd waited too long. We had no business still trying to find Magrad in the dark, and we had  _absolutely_ no business being this far north with winter coming. We didn't, we-

I was alone.

It hadn't been just me and my own thoughts in….

One clawed hand clamped on the back of my neck and squeezed hard. Something thrashed deep in the ice of my thoughts, a great black shape screaming with a fury I couldn't even begin to comprehend. With no enemies to hurl myself towards, the hornets rose in a choking cloud, my hands shaking so hard I doubt I could have managed it in the first place. I'd always chosen when I was alone, I'd always leapt out into it headfirst and damned the consequences, it had always been the work of  _my_ hands and  _my hands alone._ This wasn't Gehrich pulling up the stakes and leaving, this wasn't that first, awful night in the ship's hold with the islands a steadily disappearing smudge on the horizon, this was-

 _He locked the front door and wouldn't let me come home. I was small, too small to know better, and all I knew was that she was sick, she was still sick, that she'd be doing better once the fishing boats were able to meet up with one of the traders from the Continent and bring back whatever they used to treat these goddamn fevers, but I never knew any different because nobody_ told me.  _I ended up knocking on Keys's door after the sun went down and he opened the door with red eyes and a two-day old beard and said, honey, no, they burned her this morning, where have you_ been?

I snarled something, then. An ugly sound that the snow devoured. Shivering, I paced uselessly alongside the crumbled, rotten cliff edge as I tried to shrug off the rise of blackness, the rage that only came when I was killing-mad. I couldn't use it now, there was nothing, there was  _nobody-_

For the better part of the past week I'd been in the company of a dour, complicated old man in a younger one's body who didn't trust me any farther than he could throw me and probably didn't  _like_ me any further than that and spent every waking minute dead-bolted and with every window nailed shut because he trusted himself even less. He was funny. He was honorable. He was bizarrely good company, when he allowed himself to be. He was as unhappy as a person was ever likely to get, but he'd tried his damnedest all the way here on nothing more than my word.

 _Did I- did I_ care _this much? When did that happen? He's his own man, I'm not responsible, I'm not-_ the thoughts came stuttering and uncertain and too quickly to process, and then I was clutching my arms like I was two years old again and looking for somebody to lead me home.

 _I did this to him_ , I thought, suddenly unable to get enough air.  _I, I took his rock and I gave it to a crazy man, and then I told him I'd make it up to him, that if he came with me we could get it back for him. He_ believed  _me, the stupid fuck. He believed me and I-_

Treacherously, my mind cast back to when he'd looked at the ground and told me that he'd chosen to be here as much I had, and after that, nothing made any sense.

I had dropped Max's rope almost as soon as Zieg had dropped over the edge. I shouted, clearer this time. The snow swallowed and muffled the noise as soon as it left my lips. I shouted louder. It turned into a scream, and then I snapped my mouth shut so fast I bit my tongue.  _No._

The earth was still sliding slowly downwards, and I was stumbling over the edge of the cliff before I knew it, blood in my mouth. Max waited miserably at the top, his ears pinned back, and then he reluctantly began to pick his way down after me.

The wind was picking up. The sun was slipping over the mountains, and the snow stung as it hit my bare nose and cheeks. I felt small, stiff, and hopelessly sluggish, and there was too much mud, too many rocks, and I couldn't see a flash of blonde hair or a corner of a green coat anywhere.

He was gone. Just like that. Buried. Dead, bones crushed. Not dead, just slowly suffocating under a cliffside of mud. Dead, spine snapped. Alive, but out of sight. I wouldn't find him in time and he'd freeze to death by morning. Dead. Not bravely. Not nobly.  _Stupidly._

 _Hey, he's died once already, right?_ I thought crazily, and then the laughter bubbled up like poison.

It was cut short as a cold, passionless voice in the back of my mind said that it was fifty miles to the closest road. That I knew none of these landmarks, that I didn't know where I was, and had no hope of reaching a town by myself.

If I was alone, if, if he was dead ( _spine snapped skull crushed freezing slowly in the growing dark)_ then I was-

I clenched my eyes shut, biting the inside of my cheek.

 _I'm not used to this. I'm not-_ _There's nothing to_ fight  _here._

I continued to slide awkwardly down the face of the destroyed cliff. It wasn't far, not really. Through the snow, I could dimly see the flat expanse of ground perhaps twenty yards below. Zieg and I could have skipped our way down the side of this thing in a heartbeat, even if he had been shaking and muttering like a three-day drunk with ants under his skin. The ground was oozing water even as I slid down it- it was  _soggy,_  no wonder the whole thing sloughed off the side like that.

I was calm. I was calm. The light was fading and the snow was picking up speed and my clothes were soaking steadily through to my skin, but I was  _calm,_ damn it. I focused everything I had into keeping it that way, but then all I could hear was Dad's voice droning ridiculously in the back of my mind:  _Staying calm is your only weapon. Without calm, you cannot plan, and you cannot execute a clean strike. You can only react. Like an animal._

I flinched, swearing loudly in the muffled quiet. I continued to swear, without elegance, without any sort of creativity. Ugly and repetitive and  _furious._ I couldn't stop myself, and I began slipping and sliding downhill even faster, and with even less grace.

There was nothing. Only mud and rocks and uprooted trees.

 _He would be…. He'd be near the bottom?_ I thought, rolling my lower lip between my teeth as I tried to look everywhere at once.  _He was standing on top. It all sloughed off sideways- look, those trees are all piled near the bottom and they were on top too._

 _If he's on the bottom, he's buried,_ I thought before I could stop myself.  _The, the trees, they would have crushed him. I have to, I-_

 _Goddamn kitten,_ drawled a satisfied voice against the back of my neck.  _It ain't right the way you run through men. Ain't ladylike. Don't half imply the fault don't lie with_ them.

I flinched so hard from that that particular thought that I lost my balance completely.

I landed hard on my hip, the momentum taking hold of me before I could react, and I rolled with it. I threw my arms and legs out in a mad panic to slow myself down, and came to a slow, muddy stop a few yards down.

The breath exploded out of me, like I'd just been tossed ass over teakettle in a match back home.

I lay there for several long moments, weakly trying to suck in air.

A distressed sounding grunt cut through the muted air.

My head whipped around to look behind me and I saw Max looking nervous and unsteady ten yards above. He'd started forwards when I fell and somehow managed to not lose his balance, his hind legs leaving large scars in the mud behind him. His pack was precariously off-kilter on his back and both of his paws clutched piteously in front of him. He looked like nothing so much as a lost toddler, eyes wide and confused.

I swore again, with great feeling.

Then I determinedly scrabbled my way back up the hillside to take his lead rope again. If our pack animal fell and hurt himself, I was fucked. If he ran off, I was fucked. If he did either of these things, and by some quirk of fate I actually  _found_  Zieg,  _alive_ , we were  _all_ fucked.

To my surprise, this actually calmed me down.

He huffed out a warm breath when I reached his side again, seeming oddly comforted, and followed without a fuss when I took his halter in one shaking hand and started slowly heading downhill again.

When _I find him,_ I thought savagely, looping the rope around my clawed fist like a life line.  _Fucking when._

That burst of panic had helped, in a way. All I needed was a good rattle to get my gears moving again.

This wasn't a fight. This wasn't something that I could bluster through by virtue of being meaner and luckier than anybody had any reason being.

I breathed hard once, and then I clamped down on my thoughts like I was a raw beginner again, lurching my way through my first forms. It was hard, as hard as it had ever been. I'm a bruiser, through and through. Calm thought and planning doesn't come into it. Calm thought and planning hadn't really had anything to  _do_ with me since I'd reached the Continent.

The cold was seeping in through my wet clothes. I held my breath to keep myself from hyperventilating, until black spots flashed in front of my eyes. I exhaled, and slowly,  _slowly_ rose to my feet, sinking ankle-deep into the mud.

It came. It came slowly, reluctant as cold tar, but it came.

Something rose in me. Something that Dad, in all his rush to transform me into the Island's next hot prodigy, had never instilled in me. Something that Dell, with all the sly words and cold fucking terror at his disposal, had never offered. And then, a memory rose up, comforting as jasmine tea at the end of a long day, sweet and faded and wrinkled from where I'd crammed it for so long.

Dad never taught the younger kids.

He'd never had the time, in any case. The old geezers tended to take care of that sort of thing, the winkled men and women who spent their days basking in the sun like lizards and barking at the us youngsters to take it through  _again,_ damnit, and for Soa's sake, somebody go fetch one of the bottles buried under Keys's back porch. They pared down the bare basics so far that technique didn't even come into it. Shit, half of their job meant taking every excited kid who thought he'd just invented the Flying Dragon Midnight Heartstopper and telling them very gently that  _look, kid, just show me you can form a proper fist eight times out of ten and_ quit  _kicking people in the ear, it ain't polite and it pisses off the parents._

Gehrich was already training under my Dad by then, breaking his hands down and building them back up into stone. He was so  _excited_ then, excited to be chosen, excited to learn under one of the most talented, youngest masters in history.

They didn't teach us technique. Half of us would be apprenticed out before we were hit our teens, and there'd be plenty of time for that later, or so they said. All they really taught us how to train with each other without knocking each other's teeth out. When they got bored (which was often), they made us run laps. Most of the time they just bickered under the palm trees while we whaled delightedly on each other like tiny hurricanes.

They'd lived through everything, these old timers. The most flat-out  _terrifying_  was the tiny old lady who lived in the house one over from Keys, Mrs. Lorre. She was tiny and dark and as gnarled as a lump of driftwood, with gleaming black eyes, cheekbones pounded flat from years of training, and long, iron-grey hair that she kept in a braid down to her knees. She was  _hard._ She'd been hauled off herself a time or two in her youth in the black ships that came to our shores- she still bore the brands on her lined cheeks. Keys mooned over her like a teenager. He'd take to bending down and muttering something in her ear halfway through lessons. One minute she'd be standing there with her spine ramrod straight, her arms crossed, and her face grim as stone, and the next she'd be bent double with her hands clapped over her mouth, just  _cackling._

She had us over to dinner once a week back then. She was a lethal hand with spices, but it was worth it just to have her murmur over me in her creaky old voice and ruffle my hair. Keys would lean back in his chair and stretch his legs out, his arms crossed, and grin like a lunatic. She did what she did best- shoved food at us until we dropped at our tracks, and provided just enough ribbing, teasing mothering to tide the both of us over some. She wasn't like Lotta's mom in the slightest, who Keys frankly sort of frightened and who provided the sort of warm, constant mothering that made the space behind my eyes hurt, but Mrs. Lorre did her best. Keys implied a hell of a lot about the extent of their relationship , but as far as I knew they were just good neighbors. I think she just thought he was funny. She died six months or so before I ran off, and he gutted his entire store of homebrew just to supply the wake. Even if he could hardly leave his house by then, he still made it.

He gathered us all together once. Waved his arm and made us stop our wild flailing and  _listen_ for a change. Mrs. Lorre watched like a small, bright-eyed bird from the sidelines, her mouth flat. He made us all calm down and shut up, and then he gave us the first real means to true self-discipline most of us had ever had.

"It ain't complicated," he said, and he wasn't smiling. "You'll learn it, most of you. Ain't hard, really, just takes time, and a whole lot of broken bones. It ain't pretty, what we do. It ain't glamorous. Half the time you're going toe to toe with the sorriest bunch of drunk, diseased motherfuckers ever to set sail, and it don't take a whole lot to make 'em turn right back around again."

In the snow, in the cold, I breathed deep and tried to remember, tried to hold on to that feeling, that golden moment in the late afternoon when my battered old uncle had drawn us all in and told us what we needed to know.

"Keep your head. Look after each other. Half the tricks in our arsenal consist of keeping calm and acting fast. It's not in how hard you can kick, or how many different ways you know how to do it. Usually, it ain't about fighting at all. It's just about getting you and yours somewhere safe until the worst of it blows over. You're not heroes. You're kids."

He'd grinned then. A tight, knowing version of his usual heartbreaker smile. Mrs. Lorre nodded in the back, and so did the rest of the older folks. The only difference was that they weren't smiling.

"Now you're gonna sit there, and you're damn well gonna  _meditate_ ," he'd said, ignoring the rise of groans that resulted, and that was the end of it.

Max nudged my back.

I struggled, trying to hold on to that feeling, trying to keep the smell of salt and hot sun in my mind, but then the cold sank in again, and I was small, sore, and in the middle of an ice-covered landslide once more.

My eyes were still shut.

I opened them, cold and miserable and  _heavy,_ and the world was different.

The snow was slowing down, the sky clearing. Up overhead, the Moon That Never Sets glowed green and malevolent and I looked down the wild tumble of earth and trees and muddy snow and then I saw the city.

The buildings loomed out of the darkness, black, terrible shapes covered in a smothering blanket of snow. This wasn't the warm, sunbathed shores of my home- there was no green, no trees, no glint of water, nothing but dead stone and snow. There wasn't a scrap of color to be seen. The walls were pitted with holes, some worn away over time, and some looked like they'd been blasted with a force impossible to comprehend, immense chunks of sculpted stone lying scattered across the fort and on into the darkness.

We'd found Magrad, sure enough.

It was old. It was older than Deningrad. I had thought, back when we'd first set out, that maybe it had still been in use whenever Zieg had done his soldiering, maybe that was where he'd cracked down the center like he had, but there was nothing here that looked like anyone had touched it for the last thousand years. The quiet was an almost physical presence, a tangible thing in the biting cold. Not a single track crossed the snow before me, and nothing stirred within that tangle of broken stone.

It was…. just  _empty._ A black and white ruin, without a soul to be seen.

The blood had stopped roaring through my ears. My breathing had calmed, my fingers uncurling from their rigid fists, trembling still.

 _We can worry about that later. It doesn't matter now,_ I thought fiercely.

I hadn't given old-fashioned meditation an honest attempt in years. Dad had always pushed me faster and faster every day to make up for time lost with Gehrich. Every lesson started out with calm and reflection and fucking  _study_ , but it was all a way for him to strip me of any scrap of enthusiasm I came in with. I started each lesson only marginally less angry than when I finished. Every day. For years.

I wasn't cut out for it. The most I'd ever had going for me was sheer bloody-mindedness and one hell of a black temper. Back before this whole mess had started, I hadn't been particularly fast, I hadn't been particularly talented, but when I got angry, my brain shut off and things just sort happened. Nothing calm about it.  _Effective,_ but hardly calm.

But I tried.

I controlled my breathing. I thought back to everything I'd ever learned about that  _useless fucking_ inner eye. I told myself that I'd known how to do this once.

When I opened my eyes again, I was ready.

I set off carefully down the landslide, skirting around an enormous tree that had been dragged down with it. Max followed quietly behind. I scanned the ground, my thoughts muted, breathing deeply through my nose.  _This isn't something I can fight my way through. This is just something I have to do._

In the end, I tripped over his arm and fell flat on my face.

**0.-0.-0**

I was clumsy, too clumsy, and he hit the ground like a sack of potatoes when I finally unloaded him from Max's back. He didn't stir. His face was as slack and dull as a corpse. The amount of mud on his clothes made him look like something that had been dredged out of a riverbed.

I stammered apologies, stumbling around to haul him inside by his armpits ("Sorry sorry  _oh jeez sorry.")_ while Max peered inside the half-collapsed building, too big and bulky to enter. I had no idea what this building might have been in a previous life, but it was good enough for our purposes now.

I'd tried to lead Max into a less dilapidated building, one large enough to house him, Zieg, and have enough space left over for a fire, but he'd balked before I could make so much as a step inside. I couldn't see any reason for it- the interior was dark, to be sure, but the corners weren't hiding anything nasty. Max wasn't having any of it. He'd thrown his head back, eyes rolling white around the edges, and no amount of cursing or thumping could budge him. Eventually I'd run my eyes over the sodden, mud-covered wreck lying brokenly across his withers and immediately settled for the only other building I could find with something resembling a roof.

The city had watched us accusingly as we trudged by, the broken doorways and windows gaping black squares in the green light of the Never Setting Moon. Nothing stirred as we passed through. The cold stabbed through like knives my wet clothes crackling faintly as I moved. There was no smoke rising from further in, and not a scrap of sound drifted through the air, only snow. Dell wasn't here- or if he was, he was hiding well.

I fumbled for his pulse once more, peeling back the mud-soaked collar of his coat until I could locate the weakly jumping pulse in his neck. The oddly pervasive heat that had always poured out from him was gone, its fires nearly banked.

 _Firewood,_ I thought numbly. _In the pack. He said, it would be difficult to find it later, so-_

I was up and moving before I had time to dither on it further. The calm that I'd carved out for myself on the landslide was gone; I'd thrown it away without a second thought. I could be calm later. Right now, I needed to act quickly.

Max watched me dolefully from where he was picketed outside, looking smaller and more pathetic without his pack and saddle blanket. He'd already guzzled through the oats I'd dumped out for him in my hurry, and was heavily implying that Zieg freezing to death was all well and good but there were people  _here, now,_ that could use my help more. I ignored him, and tore through the pack until I found the stash of dry wood. Not much. A pitifully small amount, really, this would only last us a short time, and then I'd have to head out into that eerie fucking city again to find more.

My fingers were useless in their claws and bandages, so I stripped off my armguards and removed my bandages with my teeth, all of Zieg's careful work gone in a moment. My hands felt as unresponsive as wood, but I grit my teeth and struck flint to steel as best I could. It took far too long for the flame to catch, and it was only when I thought better of it and hauled Zieg's unresisting body closer to the fire and curled him around it like a human buffer that it actually showed an interest.

He looked dead. He looked honest-to-Soa dead.

I'd very honestly thought he was, for one endless, hushed moment on the landslide where I'd stared at his upturned face and the softened line of his mouth and thought in the smallest possible voice:  _oh._

 _Oh,_ I'd thought, that eerie calm still wrapped around me like a blanket.  _So that's it then._

But he wasn't. He  _wasn't._ He was bruised and freezing and filthy and when he woke up he'd probably start clawing his way out of his own skin again for old time's sake, but he wasn't dead yet. I clung to that, my thoughts stark and fever-bright, and my hands shook with it. If he died, then all of this was for nothing, and if he died-

"Fuck  _this,"_ I muttered, standing up quickly and crossing the rubble-studded floor to our pile of gear, and began tearing out every scrap of bedding and dry clothing I could find. The cold pressed in with grim intent by now, the fire only a dim beacon against the night. If this wasn't a problem that I could solve by kicking it to death, then this was  _definitely_ a problem I could solve by smothering in furs and dry socks. I even dragged over Max's saddle blanket.

The one flaw in my plan became readily apparent when it came time to start actually removing his soaked clothes to replace them with his dry replacements.

In my defense, I attempted to revise the plan by shaking him a lot and yelling in his ear. Make him put on his  _own_ damn clothes. This did nothing more than make his hair flop wetly into his eyes and my stomach give a funny sort of lurch when I saw how very far gone he was.

The fire sputtered valiantly while I unlaced his boots with wooden fingers, peeling off his useless socks and wedging a dry set over his white feet. I refused to think about what I was doing. He remained unconscious, all the same. The only truly  _horrible_ moment came when I stared frozenly down at his belt buckle, unable to think of anything more than a tiny version of Keys somewhere deep down in my brain  _howling with laughter._

I left the belt buckle alone. Traveling together had forged an odd sort of intimacy, to be sure, but some things are beyond anybody's realm of expertise.

The coat was well and truly ruined. The shirt beneath was slick and slimy with mud and melted snow, and clung to his skin. His chest rose and fell shallowly. The skin under his eyes was bruised and dark, a smudge of earth and blood staining the right side of his face. Cautious probing revealed no split, only swelling. His lack of response could have more to do with the cold, and how little sleep he'd gotten before now. I hoped.

The fire made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a  _clunk_ , and the shadows crowded closer. I hurriedly let go and added the last of the wood to the fire, poking at the flames until they decided to do a little more work than simply curl reluctantly around the chunks of only-slightly-damp fir while all the while the snow poured down outside like milk into a bowl. Magrad had made up its mind, and decided to smother us in favor of simply scaring us off. Even as I poked at the fire, snow drifted in through the half-collapsed roof, landing on Zieg's face and eyelashes, not melting.

Grunting, I pulled Zieg into a seated position, his chin lolling heavily on his chest. With short, sharp jerks, I managed to work his coat over his shoulders. " _Figures,"_ I muttered, his forehead resting against my shoulder and his hands lying loosely on the rough wool of Max's saddle blanket. "This is payback, right? This is as  _far as I go,_ Mullet. Gotta make that clear."

I was babbling by now, a tinny note of forced good cheer ringing in my voice. His coat steamed when I clumsily spread it out on the stone next to the guttering fire, and then I started on his shirt buttons. I hoped to get this part over with as soon as possible. The sooner I had him bundled into a warm, dry shirt, the sooner I could go comb the ruins of Magrad for something to burn. I didn't want to be here, doing this. I didn't want to be clasping the back of his neck with one hand while I popped each button free with clumsy fingers to reveal his collarbone beneath, the line of muscle down his chest. I shouldn't be here, doing this. It wasn't that I was feeling  _fluttery_ or anything fucking useless like that, it was just that I had learned that pretty much the only thing Zieg had to his name was his dignity. His self control. And here I was worming my sticky, scabby little hands inside his armor and leaving greasy fingerprints all over the place. It wasn't worthy of either of us. It wasn't  _right._

 _He wasn't looking all that dignified before,_ a cool voice said inside my head.  _He looked like you. Scampering off that boat in Furni, the stink of vomit and bilge water on your clothes and a cloud of nightmares hounding at your heels. He looked like you would if the very next day saw you setting foot on the sands back home, with all you've done waiting for you there._

He wasn't me. I had accepted that. I had accepted our strange dynamic, the push and pull of it, the barbed trade of stories and apologies and dueling silences that threatened to drown both of us. I could not accept this- him being silent and boneless and far too cold in my arms. He was a dead man, he'd said before. He'd died once already. And here he was making his best attempt at it, and it scared me hollow. He was more than a tumble of bones and ill-fitting clothing, and he deserved a better death than this. He was tiredness and dignity and solemn, bizarre humor and a fucking  _beast_ with a sword in his hand. Not this drab, limp, boneless shape in this maze of tangled ruins.

The fire was dying. There wasn't enough wood to last us ten minutes, let alone the rest of the night.

I swallowed hard and crushed down my anxiety, my hiccupping fear. So much of this journey had come down to being alone and afraid in the dark, but I had survived it then and I would survive it now.

I unbuttoned his shirt, and slipped it laboriously over his shoulders. I didn't mind all that much, really. He'd done as much the same for me when I'd fainted like a little old lady in Neet. I had a sudden mental image of him going through much the same anxiety, in any case. Probably stared at my belt buckle too, who knows what he-  _Okay_ wow _yeah never again._   _New topic. Forever._

I pulled him forward, chafing his arms awkwardly to restore some small measure of blood flow, and his forehead hit my shoulder once more and that's when I saw his bare back, and then the roaring started up in my ears like it had never left and I crammed a knuckle into my mouth and  _rocked._

Magrad crowded around the both of us then, in our tiny, dying circle of firelight. I had the odd feeling of being muffled, of half a hundred worried voices battering away at me while all I could do was stare at Zieg and think in a small, matter-of-fact voice,  _So that. That's why he can't stand up straight._

It wasn't surprise that shook me. It was sudden understanding so bare and awful that it left me feeling like someone had scooped the heart out of me.

 _You've seen this before,_ another small voice chided me.  _Back home. The captives who came back. They'd been flogged, more often than not._

 _Not this badly,_ I thought back, biting my lip until I felt the unmistakable tang of salt and copper between my teeth.  _Not to the point where the skin looks melted. Not to where he'd surely have to re-teach himself how to use a sword. How to walk and stand like a man again._

His shirt. The dry one. I fumbled for it, but scrabbled and missed as the blackness rose up behind my eyes and the killing fury that locked my bones every time I looked away came howling back. My hand clamped into a fist, squeezing until the scabs split, and every cold, weak, rational thought fled my head entirely, replaced only by the need to find whoever had done this and  _crush them against the rocks for the crabs to eat._

There was nothing to hit. Just like before, there was  _nothing to hit,_ and all I could do was listen to that hot, black shape inside me snarl and throw itself against the ice of my thoughts until the whole surface of that cold lake cracked and splintered.

I suppose I could have swatted Zieg for the hell of it, but I'd sooner chop off my hand at the wrist and cauterize the stump myself. Plus that always ran the risk that he really  _would_ wake up, and there I'd be shaking and stammering and with my eyes still locked on the ruined plane of his back, pale skin and muscle running into a shining web of scored flesh and, and-

His face turned, searching.

My mouth went dry.

His eyes remained closed. Lashes short and golden against his cheek. The barest line formed between his eyebrows, but that faded.

Calmly, very calmly, I pulled the dry shirt up around him, feeding his arms through the sleeve and buttoning the front with hands that shook only a little, my clumsy fingers only momentarily slowed by the buttons. I pulled his other dry shirt on over that, and then I lay him down (gently,  _gently)_ on Max's saddle blanket, and piled every piece of bedding on that I could find. After a moment's thought, I crammed my stupid, bobbled hat on over his blonde head and called it good.

Once I was done, I hesitated, then snuck my hand down through the layers of blankets and furs to lay my fingers against his neck. His pulse jumped steadily. His temperature was better. That was all I could ask for.

After that, I pulled my coat collar up to cover my neck and I headed out into Magrad to find some firewood, because some things needed doing and I was the only one with the means to do them.

**0.-0.-0**

He didn't wake up until well into the following morning.

I didn't sleep much. The cold dug down through my layers of clothes and sank its teeth into my bones for good, and I didn't dare steal any of Zieg's bedding. Mostly I sat as close to the fire as I could, dozing infrequently, and made frequent trips back to the landslide to scrounge for firewood. What I found was soaking wet, often covered in mud, and burned with enough smoke to smother us both, but it did burn, however reluctantly.

I must have slept, because seemingly without my noticing the sky had turned a murky grey, and then I was lurching unsteadily to my feet, feeling scratchy and foggy and worn around the edges, and set off to find firewood.

The fort was much larger in the full light of day, and much,  _much_  less impressive. Less something that would make you run screaming in the opposite direction, in any case- more like a pile of goddamn rubble with a foot or so of snow on top. More of those dragoon statues cropped up every so often, some missing their heads or other defining characteristics, some so time-worn and ravaged that they were hardly recognizable. Hardly any of them resembled the one we'd found in the mountains.

If Dell had come here, he'd done a damn good job of covering his tracks. Squinting, I looked over some of the larger, less damaged building and supposed he could have camped out in one of those, could be camped out there  _still_ if I didn't have the distinct feeling that he would have shown up by now. Grinning.

I was sick of snow. I was sick of cold. I was sick of panning my eyes over every building and lump of rubble, hoping to find some sign of Hiram Dell's passage. I was  _quite_ sick of checking on Zieg every ten minutes or so to see if he was still alive. I scuffed my feet angrily through the snow, feeling mulish and trapped and entirely too cold in the toes, when I heard the shout.

No words, just a bark of noise.

It was his voice. I recognized it instantly. I dropped my armload of firewood and started wallowing through the snow back to the half-ruined building I'd left him in. Soa above, why did I  _leave?_

I ran back, fearing the worst. My thoughts were knife-edged and . Black Gods, what if it  _was_ Dell? Or what if some kind of animal had found him, even though I hadn't seen hide nor hair of anything living in this city yet.  _Or hell, maybe it was just waking up to find himself wearing that fucking hat,_ I thought, only slightly hysterically.

Max snorted when I rounded the corner, his head jerking up, but I ignored him and lunged for the doorway.  _He's awake,_ I thought.  _He's awake, and he's obviously just stubbed his toe or something, but he's awake so that means he must be feeling better._ My mind skittered back to he'd been just before the landslide, muttering and shaking, his mouth working as he drove us on further through the snow. He'd been operating under more strain and less sleep than me at my worst, but he'd had a good night's rest, and Magrad itself wasn't so terrible, just  _cold_. He had to be better than before.

I stopped just inside, my eyes wild and my lungs burning from the cold, and to my great relief, he was indeed awake, and he wasn't covered in blood or currently on fire. But all it took was a second look to confirm something I'd been dreading.

He was worse.

He was much, much worse.

Bedraggled and his hair still wild from sleep, the hat knocked off somewhere in the corner and completely free of his bedding, Zieg was backed up so far against the opposite wall of the building that he looked like he was trying to vanish into the stone. He was sitting, his hands pressed against the wall behind him and he was breathing like he was ten seconds from drowning.

 _He's awake, though,_ I thought, irrationally pleased. Sort of crazy around the eyes and shivering, but hell, I'd had some nasty wakeups of my own, and-

This was different.

He wasn't looking at me. He was staring at a specific corner of the room, his breath whistling in and out and his jaw clenched so tight I thought he'd break his teeth. His face was _white._

I looked where he was looking, confusion and alarm warring in my chest.

There was absolutely nothing there. It was bare and swept clean; I'd checked it myself earlier. There was absolutely nothing, and yet he stared and stared and looked like he was about five seconds from throwing himself off a cliff.

" _Zieg,"_ I blurted out, clutching the doorway.

He jumped about a mile at the sound of my voice. It seemed more like a convulsion. But then he looked up at me, and he looked  _absolutely fucking terrified_. I stood frozen in the doorway, my heart in my mouth. Still breathing like he'd just run a quarter-mile, he looked at me, then back at the corner, and then settled for closing his eyes, his muscles stark in his cheeks. He kept his eyes closed and said in a terse voice that still roiled with panic like snakes underwater, "Where are we."

It didn't sound like a question.

"Magrad," I said, in a small voice.

"No," he ground out, his eyes screwed tightly shut and his hands white-knuckled on the wall behind him. "Where.  _Are._ We?"

There didn't seem to be any sensible reply to this.

He wasn't making any sense. I knew this, and it bit at me, but in a way he was  _still_ somewhat clearer than he had been yesterday.

Somehow I held on to my composure long enough to swallow, and then I chose my words carefully. "I don't know. Somewhere on the edge of the city. You got knocked out in the landslide. I lugged you over here." Somewhat more reluctantly, I added, "Haven't seen Dell yet."

For a moment his brow furrowed even further, as if he hadn't the slightest idea what I was talking about.

"…. The bandit," he said after a long pause, his eyes still closed. "Yes."

He breathed deeply through his nose. His head was pressed back up against the wall- I saw him push backwards with his knees, retreating, always retreating.

I was stumbling across the room before I knew it, a sharp tang of real fear in my mouth. Not this. Never this. " _Hey_ ," I said, taking his shoulder and feeling the tension there, like his bones were seconds from erupting from his skin. "Calm down," I said, aiming for soothing and hitting slightly panicked instead. He flinched when my clawed hand clamped down, his eyes snapping open, red-rimmed and vacant, the skin underneath puffy and red. " _Listen._ Calm down. We're fine. You're fine. You hit your head, and you've been out for a while, but you're  _fine,"_ I said. I resisted to urge to shake him until his head bounced off the wall.

He stared at me dazedly. "You can't…." he said, but stopped. He set his jaw again, his silence descending like a wall.

Then, of all things, he started laughing. He leaned forward, laughing this weird, breathless, awful laugh while I knelt there in that cold, awful room feeling like the whole world had shrunk around me.

It went on for forever.

The laugh was choked off when his hands finally came up and covered his face and mouth, and I honestly thought he was going to be sick. He pinched the bridge of his nose, fumbling, it seemed, for some semblance of control. He looked at the corner again, then his eyes snapped shut once more. "Can we," he said hoarsely, "Can we perhaps move to a different location?"

"Yes," I said automatically. "Yes, we sure can." I didn't need to ask why. It didn't matter. He was awake, he was talking, and if he wanted to move, then we'd  _sure as shit_ start moving.

I lurched to my feet and said, "Can you walk?" but he was already up and moving, avoiding the corner, avoiding the walls, and heading straight for the door. I blanched, thinking that he was going to notice his change of clothes, notice that I had clearly seen the ruin on his back and flay me for it, but his face didn't change. His hands were curled into awkward fists, trembling.

I hurriedly pulled the strap of Max's pack over my back, wilting slightly under the weight, and followed after. I nearly collided with his back again. He had stopped only a step outside, and was looking around Magrad with cold, undisguised panic.

"Hey.  _Hey,"_ I said.  _"_ Look at me. Take my hand."

He reached out without thinking and I swore, adjusting the weight of the pack until I could take his hand in mine and lumber forwards through the snow. Max watched worriedly, but I figured I could come back for him later.

"You tell me where seems good," I panted.

He nodded. A short sharp jerk.

I didn't have the first clue as to where we should go- nowhere seemed particularly habitable at the moment, so I settled for heading deeper into the city. When we passed the building Max had balked at last night, he did much of the same. Stopped in his tracks and stared, and I had to drag him past while he shook his head over and over again and muttered unintelligibly and Soa help me, I just ducked my head and bore it.

Magrad bloomed before us, cold and implacable and endless. I had no idea why Hiram Dell had made this into a base. It wasn't defensible- it had no walls. It wasn't even hardly _useable._ Pretty much the only thing Magrad had going for it was its location smack-dab in the middle of fucking nowhere. And, I suppose, the overall creep factor, but that was actually something I could see him getting into.

Zieg followed jerkily, and when I looked back I saw that he was trying to walk with his eyes shut, his lips moving with no words coming out. I walked grimly on into a part of the city I hadn't explored yet. The buildings were taller here, and more devastated. There were stone dragoons everywhere, and stone dragons taking up space still elsewhere. It was getting to be like a goddamn menagerie.

I paused uneasily as the street in front of us turned into a set of tall, treacherous-looking black stairs leading down to a wide, snow-covered dais set into the side of a cliff. Magrad was a pocket, it seemed, tucked into the mountains. It didn't need to be defensible because you were lucky if you  _ever fucking found it._

 _I don't know how I'm going to get him down these,_ I thought hollowly.

"Here," Zieg said, startling me.

I hesitated, looking around and seeing nothing that looked like a suitable place to set up camp. We were in front of a ruined stone building that was even more dilapidated than the last one. "You sure?" I asked doubtfully.

He laughed. It was sharp and entirely inappropriate, and I stared, terrified that he was going to go under again. "Nothing is sure," he said. "Nothing is-" and then it happened again. He was staring at the large, snow-covered dais down below, that cracked half smile still trapped on his face, and he couldn't tear his eyes away.

I rolled my eyes, and hauled him towards the ruined building. Zieg stumbled after me. The interior was light and airy, largely by virtue of the fact that half the roof and a good quarter of the entire room was missing. Snow had drifted in and piled up in the corners. My lip curled. It would do.

I let go of Zieg's hand and dropped the pack with a sigh of relief.

 _Shit. Now I'm gonna have to build another fire,_ I thought, looking around. _That or just bring some coals over from the last one._

Zieg hit the opposite wall with a slump and slide down, his knees drawn up in front of him. Both of his hands sank into his hair, covering his eyes, and he breathed hard and deep.

"That's it," I said without thinking, more to hear the sound of my own voice than anything else. "You…. Get comfy."

A distant squeal hit my ears. Max, doubtlessly resentful at having been left behind. I sighed and rubbed my eyes. "I'll be back," I said. " _Stay there."_

He didn't respond. Either because he was trying to regain his self-control, or because he objected to being ordered around like a badly-trained puppy. I hoped it was the latter.

Max was actually glad to see me, and nearly bowled me over when I rounded the corner. He clutched at my coat with both paws, something that he'd only ever done to Zieg until now. I yelped and swatted at him until he relented, but he still crowded close as I gathered up the rest of our supplies, transporting a few live coals in our cook pot.

When I came back, Zieg still hadn't moved. When he heard me enter, he jumped about a mile, and stared as I dropped an armload of wood. His face was haggard. He looked absolutely _sick._

"What happened?" he whispered. He sounded clearer, despite it.

I hissed in a breath as I knelt stiffly and started trying to cobble together a fire out of a handful of recalcitrant coals. "You fell," I said shortly.

"Before that."

"You were acting kind of…." I said, casting around for a word that might fight. "Weird," I finished lamely.  _Yep. Weird just about covered it._

He inhaled. "Is there any sign of the bandit?"

"None that I can see," I replied.

"Are you sure he was even-" he began, but then he stopped. His hands slipped round to clasp the back of his neck, the sleeves of his ill-fitting shirt slipping halfway down his forearms. His coat was still only half dry from the fire, and crackled with mud. I wondered if he missed it. "No. Some of them must be his work," he said thickly.

 _Some of_ what? I wanted to ask, but kept silent. He was right back to making absolutely no sense Every time I thought he'd made some progress, he slid right back in his tracks.

He continued, his voice growing faster and more unsteady by the minute. "Magrad was never taken, it was never the center, they never breached the walls. Why then-"

He brought his hands forward and clasped them together, forcibly stilling the trembling. I remembered his sword. My fingers fumbled on the kindling, wondering if I should go fetch it. If only give him something to hold on to.

Trembling, his shoulders hunched forwards, he looked like a beaten man. It never showed as much when he had his sword.

The fire caught. I breathed out my relief, and fed it larger and larger pieces until I felt safe leaving it on its own. I sat up, feeling a hundred years too old and ten sizes too small for what was required of me.

I looked him over. Saw the pallor in his skin, saw his cracked, peeling lips, and realized that he needed water more than anything else right now. I stumped outside to fill our cookpot with clean snow, and set it on the fire to melt down.

I crossed the rubble-strewn room stiffly, and slid down to sit next to him. He didn't stir.

I rubbed my arms to bring a little warmth back to my bones, while Zieg sat and shivered and gnawed himself hollow. Through the broken wall, Magrad unfolded before us like the world's ugliest landscape painting, everything done in shades of white, black and grey.

He blinked when my hand entered his field of vision. I offered the hat wordlessly.

In his defense, he only looked puzzled for a moment, and then an extremely familiar flat look crept across his face. I shrugged, and jammed the stupid thing over my ears.

I wished I was anyone else at that moment.

"Okay," I said, keeping my words calm and matter-of-facr. "Talk to me." I swallowed, and tried to think back to everything he'd ever told me about himself, tried to put together the mismatched puzzle pieces of his life until they made a shape I could recognize. "Is it just, you know, some memory? Or-"

His jaw clenched. "No. Not a memory. Here.  _Now."_

"But there's nothing  _here,"_ I said, frowning in confusion. _"_ It's all just rock and ice. I haven't seen anything moving around in here except us."

"I don't," he said, visibly struggling, and from the sound of it, completely fucking unhinged. "I don't understand why you can't see it," he said matter-of-factly. "I don't understand why I can _,_ but I do. I don't know if it's simply because I  _know_ them, or if it is some curse left over from before, but I do. I wish I did not."

"See  _what_?" I asked, but he just shook his head and muttered something that didn't sound like any language I'd ever heard, and he was all stone and stiffness and cracked-mirror craziness again, slipping out of my reach. If I were my Dad, I could put some iron in my voice, snap him out of it- if I were Lotta, I could wrap my arms around his shoulders and pull him back to me- if I were Keys I'd start wordlessly bringing out the booze, but I've never been my family, I've never been able to harness anything other than my anger and only to the point where it harnessed  _me,_ so that's when I grabbed him.

I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and I shook him, and he went tense,  _tenser_ if possible, panicking at the unexpected contact, and before I could stop myself I gave him one hard shake. " _Quit_ ," I said, the bark that I'd only ever used on Max before now ringing in my voice, like Zieg was some misbehaving kid. His hand came up and locked around my wrist, long, cold fingers squeezing so tight I imagined I could hear my bones grinding together. It anchored him- his rocking stilled.

"Right," I said, once the blood stopped roaring in my ears, and trying to act like I knew what I was doing. "Calm down. Let's figure this out.  _Slowly._ Who am I?"

He blinked at me, eyes too close and too blue. His lips quirked, a nervous pull to the side that was miles and miles from his usual blink-and-you'll-miss-it grin. He looked old. He looked stretched. He looked five seconds from total hysterics. His hand stayed locked around my wrist, tightening steadily until I had to swallow against the pain. "You are," he said unsteadily, then caught himself. That saw-edged smile surfaced again, "A thief. A berserker. A girl who pretends at being a bandit. A girl who pretends at  _everything."_

 _Aw, that's just uncalled for,_ I thought, stung.

I pushed it to the back of my mind. "Fair enough. And you?"

He shook his head, numb and mute, and inhaled raggedly, as if about to launch into another rambling account of god knows what. I gave him another shake in disgust. "You're really _embarrassing_ is what you are. You're good with a sword. You can't cook."

His head cocked slightly to the side. He smiled, cautiously. Like a bruise.

I continued. "You're a fucking  _rude_ young man who got one hell of a knock to the head last night. So we're gonna sit here, and you're gonna drink some water and eat some food and calm the fuck down before I make Max sit on you." I paused, then said with great feeling, "And god  _damn_ , let go of my hand."

He snatched his hand back, the guilt showing through for one searing hot moment before the old fear swallowed it again. He didn't look at me as I let go of the scruff of his neck and rubbed my wrist, but he seemed calmer. He no longer breathed like there was an animal scrabbling its way up through his chest. He clutched his hands together in his lap; they did not shake.

I nudged him.

"I mean it," I said roughly. "Tell me."

I sounded gruffer than I'd meant to, but if there was one thing that I'd learned about him was that the only thing that had  _ever_ worked was to get him talking.

His eyes were so inward, so flat, that for a moment I wondered if he'd even heard me. He didn't look outside, which had so upset him earlier. He didn't look at me. He stared at his hands, his rough, long-fingered hands pockmarked with callus both old and new. He had elegant hands for a swordsman.

His voice was so quiet that I barely caught it.

"Magrad," he said softly. "The people of Magrad."

While I stared at him, my thoughts running a mile a minute trying to force this to make some kind of sense, wondering if I should give him another shake, he continued dreamily. "They gather at the doorway now. Vying for view."

I whipped my head round to stare at the door. There was nothing. There had always been nothing.

 _He's crazy,_ I thought.  _He's finally gone and done it._

There was  _nothing_. Not even a wisp of wind. I looked at that dais that had so attracted his attention before. It was set into a cliff, stone shapes within wreathed in shadow. Shadows deeper than the daylight warranted, I'll grant you, but-

"Don't look," he said, sharp and terrible. "Don't look for them. Don't draw their attention."

I looked away reluctantly. "You can't see them," he continued. "But you will. With time."

"What?" I said, still confused, and a little ill at ease. "See, see what? See  _ghosts?_ See something that ain't fucking  _there?"_

"They watch you. They don't know you. You hold no interest for them," he interrupted. "They... are wary of you. But some…"

"Wait," I said, fear blooming in my chest as it slowly hit me. "You're saying-"

" _Don't._ Say it," he said, screwing his eyes shut once more. "That will make it real."

I didn't know what to think. I didn't know  _shit_. I know I'd seen more than my share of odd, awful things when under strain- the fight in front of the burning tavern felt more like an exceptionally bad dream than anything else, all black streaks and awful noise and a hot, breathing weight on the back of my neck that didn't make any sense no matter how I looked at it. I freaked out. I hit people. That was all there was to it. Maybe he was in the grips of the same sort of fit, where whatever he'd been through and whatever had happened to Magrad back at the dawn of the world were all bleeding together in his head. Stranger things had happened.

Magrad pressed in closer, and I couldn't see anything, couldn't make out any of the ghostly figures that he swore surrounded us both, but-

 _He's tired. He's heartsick, anybody can see that. If he says he's seeing things, then he probably is, but that's no business of mine,_ I thought solidly.  _It's just this fucking_ city  _doing it to him._

Without even having to prompt him, he was speaking again. "Not all of them are from… before. The bandit must have added some of his own," he said. "They're walking through the city, even now. By the hundreds. Most are quiet. Most… are still trapped in the moment of dying, but some  _see_ and….." His head jerked up. "Claire."

"What?" I burst out before I could help myself.

His head sank back against the wall. He closed his eyes once more. "No," he said, farther away than I'd ever heard him. "They. They know your name."

The blood buzzed in my ears for a moment while I tried to process this, and found I couldn't.

There was nothing I could say to that.

We were both quiet then. Him, miserably so. Me, less calmly.

He squeezed the fingers of his left hand, knuckles going white. "I know Mayfil pulls all to her, I know that this cannot be and yet it  _is,"_ he muttered, and he was right back to his stumbling, fever-mad cadence from before. "I know that-"

He froze. His eyes were fixed on the air behind me. I flinched and turned my head. I knew I would see nothing, would continue to see nothing, but I still looked. I saw nothing but the broken city. The stairs leading down to the dais.

"Don't go near there," he said softly. I looked back at him, hardly daring to breathe. His eyes were hard. "Don't go near the dais."

He squeezed his hand harder, both wrists shaking. Without thinking, I reached out and took his hands, prying his fingers free of their death grip. He looked at me, startled, and clutched at mine instead. I kept my face still, not wincing, even though the pressure made my bruises yowl clear up to my elbow.

He realized what he was doing this time. He looked down at my hands, my swollen knuckles, my split scabs, and his face changed. He loosened his grip. Wrapped my hands in his, the tremors still shivering through his fingers, and this I let him do as well. My own hands were small, brown, and broken in his paler ones. Ugly little things. Almost fiercely so.

He gathered himself together. Piece by piece, staring at my hands. Then spoke, deliberately so. "I am not mad. I am  _not."_

It sounded like a point of pride to him. One of the few markers he measured himself by.

I nudged him again in ribs I knew for a fact were bruised, with my elbow, my hand still in his. I grinned crookedly. "Nah," I said, my voice sounding raw and cocky like I'd always wanted it to be and had never quite managed before. "Nobody said that. 'Sides. Remember who you're talking to. I know crazy when I see it."

I tried for suave. I tried for fearless. I tried for what I knew  _I'd_ need in a situation like that.

I tried to sound like I believed him. It was all I could offer.

He huffed a laugh. A real one. Nothing more than a sudden exhalation in the snow-smothered quiet, and something inside me unclenched. "No, You are not mad."

His eyes narrowed, his voice sounding more like himself, but softer now. "You are… appallingly violent. You fling yourself forwards, as if whipped. But never mad."

I couldn't look him in the eye then. Not at the word  _whipped._

He laughed again, and this time it  _was_ crazy. "I'm not, and you're not, and yet here we are." His teeth gleamed at me, his eyes shining above, the bright fragments of the desperately young man he so clearly used to be clawing at the edges. "A fine pair we make. "

**0.-0.-0**

We made a mistake in coming to Magrad.

I could have dealt with it better, I think, if I hadn't been as tired as I was. If I could sleep, if I could have five minutes to myself to think and plan, if the weird  _fog_ that had hung over my thoughts ever since we hit the snow would go away, then-

Magrad weighed on me. It wasn't ghosts- I couldn't  _see_ any ghosts, and I still wasn't sure if it just wasn't something screwy in Zieg's head- it was just the sheer, awful  _quiet._

I'd come to accept the fact that I'm not a plan maker. I don't plan. I…. well, I pretty much hope a plan of some sort will turn up while I'm still barreling forwards. I hadn't had anything resembling a  _plan_ since the day I vanished into Furni, wild eyed and heartsick and more terrified than I'd ever been in my entire life. This whole shit-storm with Hiram Dell and Zieg's stone stemmed entirely from my inability to think things through- hell, half my time on the Continent thus far had been spent cleaning up the messes the other half created. I ran. I stumbled face-first into every and any situation I encountered, fists flailing, and then I bounced off in the other direction as fast as my legs could take me. Magrad had just been one more hazy possibility on the horizon, an excuse to keep running. Now we were here, and I was running out of ideas.

What had Zieg been  _thinking?_ Coming out here at the start of winter, with a half-crazy Rouge outlaw brat and one lovelorn Runner. What did he think he was going to  _find?_

Not this, in any case. Not a pathetic pile of rocks and caved-in ruins in the mountains. Not a city of ghosts that knew my name.

We needed to run. We needed to get the hell out of here. We needed-

It would be easier, I think, if I could just think of him as a means to an end. An ally. A piece of hired muscle I'd roped into helping me corner Dell. An accessory that I still felt the need to keep apologizing to. It would be easier if I didn't  _care_ that he was so broken up about being here, but I did, and I hated that too.

It would be easier if I could fix him. If I could just smack him and shout at him thatthe past is just the past, you can choose what you want to remember and you can choose what you want to block out. It's that simple. It has to be. If I could smack him and force him to remake him run and fight and start fires everywhere he goes so he can wrap himself up tight in his anger and never feel anything else. Make him grin that heartbreaker, arsonist's grin from before. Put a sword in his hand, and watch him go to work. Make him into  _me._ Beg him to forget, to put it out of his head and replace with enough noise and ugliness to drown it out, and when that's all over with, make him  _run._

It was what I wanted to do, in any case. But didn't.

Nothing much happened after I got him settled in.

He drank. He made a show of eating, but not much. I wanted to ask him what we ought to think about doing in the meantime, but his face was so drawn that I couldn't dare. We sat and we waited.

I didn't explore the city any more. I didn't feel right leaving Zieg on his own, since- well. I didn't feel right about it. He hardly let me leave his line of sight as it is- he didn't talk about the ghosts anymore, about what he was apparently seeing, but every time I so much as stepped outside I'd come back to find him stark white and shaking all over again. I took over cooking. He may have been a lousy cook, but I was a worse one- the only time I felt mildly reassured all day was when he sent me a resigned look over the bowl I passed him.

He sat, and he shivered, all day. He was no worse than before, but hardly anything approaching  _better._

He didn't talk much. When I did go outside, I never went far, and never anywhere,  _anywhere_  near the stairs that led down to the dais. I didn't want to push things. Either something was definitely there, and going there would lead to an even bigger problem, or seeing me venture near would send Zieg into, I don't know, a fit, or something equally awful.

It didn't snow again that day. But what remained, the sheer weight of all that whiteness, was bad enough.

Snow wasn't quaint anymore. Or magical. I missed the sea. I missed colors.

Night came.

Magrad transformed itself once more into the crumbled, green-tinted underworld that I'd first encounter the night before, under the light of the Moon That Never Sets. I heard nothing. Saw nothing. But by the end of that long, frazzled day of staring at each and every shadow like it held something I could fight, I was nearly as crazy as Zieg.

I never knew how to talk to him before. This was worse. Before, it was all eggshells and trapdoors and the both of us dancing ridiculously around the dark spaces that neither of us wanted breached. Here it was worse.  _Here_  was a field of broken glass, with every step a wrong one. So we didn't talk. The night grew darker, the Moon glittering above like a bright-winged beetle, the fire casting dancing shadows across the ruined walls. Max stood quiet guard outside, his ears pinned flat to his head. In the end, I didn't even try to hide, or to make sure that we occupied any kind of a defensible position.

Hiram Dell was going to kill us.

I'd thought…. Soa alone knew what I'd thought. I suppose I'd figured that we could confront him, either in the open, or hell, jump him when his pants were down. We could beat what we needed out of him. If it came down to it, I…. Well, Zieg could lop his head off and have done with it. No need to get any blood on my hands at all. Not that I  _couldn't_ , I just-

Zieg was unmanned, my hands were wrecked, I couldn't sleep through the night, and every time I thought about facing Hiram Dell  _here,_ on his own ground, it made my palms sweat. Things had seemed so much clearer before. But now… I was tired. And old. And sick to death of trying to be the strong one.

He sat across the fire, his sword across his lap. I don't know when he'd found it. pupils were contracted from the fire's proximity, making his eyes feral and strange in the shifting light.

I lounged opposite him on my hip, Max's saddle blanket cushioning me from the cold stone. A layer of sleeping furs was drawn over me, providing some measure of protection against the bite of Magrad. A mug of hot water rested in my curled hand, flavored with a pinch of black coffee for strength. I watched him wordlessly.

His silence was not a wall, as I'd thought before.

It was a hole. I would fill it, pebble by pebble if need be.

"Talk to me," I said, in this odd, quiet voice I halfway wondered even belonged to me.

He looked up.

He'd found his coat once more, and dried it over the fire. It was stiff with mud, and torn in places, but the green still showed through. I remembered Furni. I remembered when all I'd known of him had been his green coat and dusty blonde hair and air of sadness. I remembered when I'd thought that was all there was to him.

He spoke, looking down at his sword. "I was…" He looked up, blinking rapidly, and that odd half-smile was on his face. "I was a young man here."

A log broke. It was the only sound that followed. I pressed my lips together.

He shook his head, still smiling ruefully. "I can hardly believe it now. Looking back. My boyhood… was far from here. Yet this is the only place I can remember."

His next question was spoken more quickly. It startled me where I sat, my eyes locked on the floor. "And you?"

I blinked, looking up. "I- me?"

He regarded me from across the fire. His eyes were cautious. "The place that made you," he said stiffly.

It was our dance again. Our trade of answers for answers, a story for a story. The only difference being that this didn't have the edge of defensiveness that our exchanges usually carried.

He looked uncertain.

I unclenched a little. Wrapped my hands around my mug, and drew it closer. I could do this. "It isn't like this, that's for sure," I said, smiling weakly. "Too cold, for one."

He exhaled a laugh, watching me.

I took a sip, tasting the bitterness. I combed my stiff hair away from my eyes with my naked, swollen fingers. I could do this. "It's all white sand and blue seas where I'm from," I said casually. "None of this snow and trees nonsense."

He nodded. "Will you return, do you think? Once this is over?" he asked. "To your…. Wherever you're from." The question was matter-of-fact. His tone mild. It was easily the most normal he'd sounded all day.

"No," I said sharply, the blackness rising in a sudden surge. "Never."

He watched me. Studied me, it seemed. Startled by the strength of my reaction.

I bit my lip.

He smiled. A flash of white teeth in his weary face. "I said the same, once," he murmured. "I wish you more luck than I."

I stayed silent.

His skin was ruddier in the firelight. He'd combed his hair back earlier, and it lay sleek and flat above his face, no longer a shaggy mane dancing in his eyes. A small touch, but an important one. Magrad had stripped him bare and hollowed out his insides, but he still felt it within himself to manage this one, small gesture.

He inhaled, and spoke suddenly. He looked at his sword, lying across his lap.

"…Too much has happened to me," he said, the shadows on his face deepening, his voice deliberate and without passion. It came out of nowhere, and I blinked, wondering when we'd come back to this. "There is a weight on me that I can never remove."

It was offered, I think, in both explanation and apology. Awful in its bareness, but purely him, down to the bone. Not hiding behind pretense.

I blinked. "You can run away," I said without thinking.

He looked up once more.

I felt nervous. But the words were like a bubbling tide within me, a force I couldn't control. I'd never felt this urge before- not with Miles, and not with Dell. I felt… compelled to speak them. "It's what I do. I think." I looked down.

He studied me as I flinched and reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. "Something. Happened to me too," I said. "I ran. And I kept running. And I got good at it, and it hasn't caught me yet."

He merely watched me. Watched me with this strange, unreadable expression. It almost looked like pity. It rankled me,  _frightened_ me even. But then, to my great relief, his face creased in this sad, lost little smile, and suddenly, it was if he was no longer watching the ghosts around us.

"Run," he said softly, and not without humor. It was there somewhere. "And this works?"

"There's nothing so bad that you can't run from it," I said, stronger this time.. "There's always somewhere to go."

He shook his head. "I caught up with you," he objected, and he sounded so much like his old self that my breath nearly caught.

"Nah," I said, and then somehow a grin caught up with my lips and wrapped itself up in them before I could think. "You ran with me."

He smiled back. Slowly.

Something reached between the two of us. Something separate from the bleakness of Magrad, the cold stone leeching away our spirits. Something heavy and dark and strange, something that made me suddenly so skittish and clumsy that I nearly dropped my cup when I next raised it to my lips.

He did me the mercy of looking away.

"Comrades," he said quietly, after a long moment. "I had forgotten."

My own word, held out to me like a peace offering. I had thought that I no longer had it in me to be shocked by anything. I was wrong.

I suppose that was why I said what I said next.

"I had a," I said, but then my throat locked up, and I had to sit frozenly and will myself to try again. I did. "I had one. Once."

Somewhere, far away, a cry cut itself off, somewhere deep in the black ice below. Or maybe I smothered it with my own hand. I kept talking.

"We grew up together," I said in this soft, unsteady voice, and he didn't look away. Didn't utter a word to interrupt or encourage. Only watched, his eyes as large as I'd ever seen them.

"I didn't really… have anybody, growing up. 'Cept her," I continued. I didn't think. I didn't allow myself the time to think. I merely spoke, before my brain caught up with me and crammed my words back down and into the dark where they belonged. "I saved her once, kinda. Blundered into a fight that wasn't mine. She didn't really need saving and I wasn't really in any position to  _do any_ and we both ended up in deep shit after, but…. Yeah."

I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know if this was just a side-effect of the calm I'd carved out for myself earlier. I didn't know what force compelled me to chip at the ice that had held this stories down for so long, but at that moment, I just felt  _tired._ I kept talking.

"But we wound up with each other afterwards," I said quickly, and then, yes, I could feel the rust building, could feel my throat closing around the words even as I spoke them, but underneath there was the calm my uncle had tried to give me on a sun-bathed beach half a hundred years ago. "Through thick and thin."

He watched silently.

I rolled my shoulder uncomfortably, and flashed him a bright smile that felt as hollow as his own had been, earlier. I spoke more quickly. "I wonder, now, if I should have just let her be. If she'd be better off now if I hadn't-"

My brain finally caught up with what I was doing. My thoughts froze over thick, forbidding ice, the water beneath it black and bottomless.  _No._

"Yeah," I said roughly, looking down, all my strength leaving me. "Well. Anyway."

Outside the wind picked up. Our fire felt it, and wavered, an errant pop sending sparks drifting to the ceiling, and right about then, I could picture it. Ghosts crowding close, at every door and window, watching our exchange with mute judgment. Zieg had been young here, he said. Here, in this old place of broken rock and stone dragoons. Before whatever war had split him down the middle and left him old before this time, when the scars around his wrists and the ruin on his back had still been new. Before whatever it was that had grabbed him and dashed him against the earth to make him this way.

I'd been acting… myself, I think. Who I'd been before any of this. Before Dell. Before those sleepless, hungry nights in the city with my thoughts ripping me hollow. Before I'd ever stolen a fishing boat like my worthless cousin and headed out to open sea, the blood still on my hands.

I had never felt so old, at that moment. Never felt so… defeated by circumstance. Never as tired, as unwilling to keep fighting. The words had poured forth, as if there were no longer room inside me for them to remain, and now that they were gone-

I felt empty. Not free. Not happier. Just empty and miserable.

He spoke, not me.

"Speaking… as someone who has been saved," he said, breaking the silence and causing me to jerk my eyes up, surprised. "I can tell you that it was worth doing. No matter what she might have said. And she didn't regret it."

It was gently put. Cautiously so, even, and I had to look away. I  _could not_ look.

But I watched him still, out of the corner of my eye, and when he lifted his chin, gesturing to the world outside, and I turned my head to look.

Perhaps it was nothing. It could have been the smoke from our fire, wrapping around the windows and curling close, licking around the eaves. Perhaps a haze of blown snow and frost created the oddly murky quality to the light, as if the air itself had grown thicker and pressed in on our small, isolated little world, starved for warmth.

My mouth went dry, as I watched the ghosts of Magrad crowd around our shelter.

I looked back, and he was regarding them tiredly, a half smile still on his face.

It wasn't the fear from before. It looked more like acceptance. "They listen," he murmured. "They gather, and they listen."

"Did you…." I said, my voice catching in my throat. "Did you know them?"

He closed his eyes. "A few."

I swallowed. The words tore free, dragging pieces of myself up with them.

"Are your comrades…. Are they here?" I asked.

 _Do they speak his name too?_ I wondered.  _These ghosts that knew him once._

"No," he said softly, his eyes still closed.

And then, quickly, in that same, treacherous, stumbling voice from before, he said, "Six. There were six of them."

"Do not ask me for their names," he said stiffly while I watched and watched and wondered if he was ever going to stop shocking me when he opened up like this. He opened his eyes, and he looked at me straight in mine. The lines in his face as if carven in stone. His eyes blue holes. "One," he said. "He was mad. And strong. Brutally so. We fought, constantly. But he was brave, and cunning." Absently, he added, "You would have liked him."

"The other," he said, and this time he looked away, his sword still lying uselessly across his knees. "A scholar. The other, a…. a teacher." I kept my eyes trained on him, stunned. I had seen him afraid. I had seen him desperate. I had never seen him like this. So furiously and utterly  _willing_ to hold his own hands to the fire. He drew in one short, sharp breath, and continued. "One, she was young, and afraid of her power. Hers was not a happy ending. The other, was, was a healer. Kind. Strong."

He looked up. His face was stripped bare. Skin and muscle and every scrap of his courage all sanded down to leave only bone. His gaze traveled outside. Out and down, down the black, broken stairs and across the frozen stretch of ground to that forbidding dais, half-shrouded in the mountainside.

"The sixth was to be my wife," he said, as if it were nothing. As if this had nothing to do with him. "We stood there, on the dais, and made our vows together." His voice grew almost sing-song in cadence, soft and steady, only to drop like a rock. "And then she died."

"They all died," he said stiffly. "I thought I… was dead. But I soon learned different."

He smiled at me. Just at me. "I could try, like you to run. But….If anything, I wish to run back to them. With all my heart." He paused. "But I can't," he concluded softly.

My head hurt. Everything… everything hurt. My eyes swam. No hornets, no burning heat traveling down my arms and up my neck, just a terrible weight that pressed the life out of me. Against my will, my hand found its way up to my face. I found no wetness. No weakness there. I did not crack.

His acceptance. That was what shook me so.

His… acceptance of the fact of their deaths. Despite everything.

The ghosts pressed closer.

I drew in a breath, and found that I was standing. Without my knowledge, I was standing, as if poised to run.

Zieg blinked up at me, puzzled.

Moving stiffly and unsure, I crossed the room. Thumped down next to him, my bones hurting.

I nudged him first. With one elbow. And then my hand reached out on its own and wrapped around the upper part of his arm. Fiercely. I'd dragged him free of the mud and the snow- I'd earned this much. He stiffened, like a man touched with a burning brand, and stared at my hand with an unreadable expression.

I opened my mouth. Hesitated. Then spoke. "If it helps, I'm sorry I gave your rock to a murdering bandit who's going to kill us both in a really spectacular way if we ever find him."

I didn't think he was going to say anything to that at all. But then-

"….Thank you.," he said.

**0.-0.-0**


	20. Chapter 20

> " _God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down."_  
> 
> 
> _-C.S. Lewis. A Grief Observed._

**0.-0.-0**

> " _I am just a girl, like the ones you can find anywhere."_  
> 

**0.-0.-0**

Let's say…There's a story.

It's a good one, I swear.

There's swordfights, for one, and there's straight-up brawling for the rest of us. There's suspense and swashbuckling and all sorts of things that a younger me would have eaten up with a spoon. The girl would be the first to tell you that it's  _her_  story thank-you-very-much and roll right on with the telling of it- but no, for the moment, this is the story about a man.

He had a long, serious face that he usually kept tucked down in his collar and one of those tiny, glinting smile that struck sparks when it landed. He was polite. He was honorable. Nauseatingly so at times. He stayed that way right up until the moment you broke through and  _really_ made him angry and then you realized that the man kept grudges like some people keep prized azaleas and had a stare that could strip paint.

All stories have their once-upon-a-times, and once upon a time this man had been a soldier. Some men are born that way, just like some girls are born to meet the world fist-first and flailing. He'd fought for something he'd believed in, and a purpose that had defined him. He'd been young once. He'd had comrades and rivals and lovers, and then he'd lost them, all of them, and was left floundering in their wake. He was a dead man still stumbling around in the world of the living, blinking hard and wincing in the sunlight and wishing like hell someone would cut his strings and let him drop.

That part of the story's missing, I'm afraid. Whatever you could wrest out of him came in fits and chunks, each more reluctant than the last, but each and every one made you want to reach your hand in and fiddle around the corners to see what else you could find. Who he'd fought with. What he'd fought for - although knowing him it had probably been something grim and glorious and worth it right up to the bitter end. What had given him that iron core of honor and raw courage and a sense of decorum strong enough to boil a pot dry. Sometimes you'd come away with something bright he'd kept tucked away and nearly forgotten himself, and sometimes you found yourself with a horror in your hands.

The one fact that emerged time and time again was his loyalty. He was the kind of man who would fall once and fall  _hard_ from the looks of things. Even if the impact had broken him. Whoever they were, whatever loyal, crazy, loving group of people he'd fallen in with and made his own, they'd formed the center of his world. He'd loved. Been loved. Been his ridiculous, disapproving, stiff-necked self around people he'd have died for in a heartbeat.

And then they'd gone. And there he was.

That's what happens when you build your life around other people. They go, and they rip the foundation out with them. There's no coming back from something like that.

He tried. Slowly. Stutteringly. As hesitantly and painfully as a man testing out a broken leg for the first time since the fall that had shattered it. His progress skidded forwards and backwards at the turning of the wind, but moved grimly and relentlessly forward all the same. It had started with a broken chair leg and a mad dash through the streets with his hand locked around the wrist of a runaway girl. It had started the first time she'd seen him with a sword in his hand, looking tall and fearless and whole for the first time she'd known him. It had started the first time she ever saw that brief quirk at the corner of his mouth that made her want to punch him and laugh and burst into tears all at once. And every day the nebulous, stumbling, half-realized bond between him and the stupid girl who traveled with him grew scaffolding and dimension until it very nearly began to resemble a sort of friendship.

If this man had a story, he would have told you that it had ended years ago.

But that's the thing, isn't it?

We never get the stories we want.

**0.-0.-0**

Ideally, things would have been simpler.

Ideally we should have woken up to Hiram Dell conveniently lying hog-tied and gagged on our doorstep with Gehrich's boot on his neck and then we could have all gone south to less _stupid_ climates and rob spice caravans for a living.

Ideally Zieg could have taken it upon himself to not be  _the most boring man in the world_  for five minutes and brought more than oats and salt and a couple pounds of dried beef so we could have something approaching a proper breakfast. Ideally, I would have gotten it into my head that we were  _hunting somebody_ , not just dancing around in the woods for a week so that when we finally hit Magrad the reality of our situation wouldn't clothesline me like it did.

Ideally….

Forget it. It didn't warrant even trying to pick apart anymore.

By the time morning scraped its teeth over the mountaintops, I was out in the city, gritty-eyed and weary and already resigned to the fact that in all likelihood, I was never going to be warm again. Breakfast sat like a rock in my stomach and my claws rattled loosely on my hands, the straps not even done up right.

Things at camp had gotten…. complicated.

Breakfast had been profoundly awful- nothing more than a handful of soggy boiled oats and black coffee that my throat was too wooden to swallow. Zieg was past talking by this point- past anything more than sitting dully by the fire, looking for all the world like some storm-battered shipwreck.

He wasn't any better.

I'd thought-

Well. Soa alone knew what I'd thought, but things had been awful and were always going to  _be_ awful but for one shivering moment they'd come together and they'd seemed bearable and that had to count for something, right?

He'd been  _doing_  better- that was the rub of it. Hell, I'd even thought all this running around in the woods was good for him. He was a quiet man, I knew that, and I'd grown used to the fact that he played his cards glued to his chest instead of relying on the one ace jammed up his sleeve like the rest of us, but more than that, he was  _calm_. If he had one thing to his name it was his calm. Sometimes it was tiredness and sometimes it was grief and sometimes it shredded itself apart and showed all the awful hurt that lay beneath, but it was nearly always there. He stayed one step back and he watched and he considered and for the most part he kept his own counsel and at his best he was steady in a way that never failed to rattle me when he… wasn't.

Last night had been nothing more than two people dredging up old hurts for no good reason that I could see and morning had done nothing other than make it so we could barely look each other in the eye anymore. It felt like I had to check my eyes and take a step back whenever I looked at him, as if whatever mangled little definition I had of him in my head had taken a sound kick in the teeth. I'd never thought of him as young and in love, and I didn't know what to think of it now.

But that was just like him, wasn't it? He wore you down with how grey and boring and unobjectionable he was until suddenly something flickered and the steel and vinegar and the sheer weight of him flashed before your eyes. He always buried it, always tamped it down. He wasn't like me- he didn't deal with things simply by drowning them out- he simply held them under by the neck and  _drowned_  them.

He'd done much the same by the time I'd woken up.

I'd sat by the fire, trying to stomach my food, trying to wrest myself out of the fog that had taken over me sometime during the night, and Zieg had sat slumped over in the ruins of his coat, his face pinched and colorless, his eyes so bloodshot that the blue burned through like holes.

He looked …small.

He looked like the first day I'd met him.

It was something that I'd thought I'd seen the last of for a long, long time, and seeing it again made something in my chest crumble until I felt like one good blow would split me open like a lump of rotten wood.

I had never wanted to see him like that again. Even when we hadn't been-

Well. Even when we hadn't been trapped out here together.

We didn't talk about Dell. We didn't talk about the dwindling likelihood that he'd ever been here, that he was ever going to be here. We didn't talk about the coming snow or the shrinking food supply, or the dead walking the streets or the look on his face when he brought up his dead almost-wife.

With that many unsaid words tripping around in our mouths, it was a wonder we even made it through breakfast.

In other words, it was awful, and in that peculiar, grinding way that only Magrad seemed able to bring to bear.

It wasn't something that Zieg could fight, that much was clear. He did what he always did, just hunched his shoulders and bore it silently and watching him do it dug into me like a fishhook.

I suppose that's why I left.

Slipped away, more like. I think I even made some pretext about finding more firewood. I hadn't even really planned it- I just took one step and then another and before I knew it I was heading deeper into the city and away from him just as surely as I could.

Not fleeing, mind you. Not with any destination in mind. No direction, merely  _away_. I wasn't running. Or rather, I was, but not far, and it wasn't like I wasn't going to come  _back._ I mean, eventually.

But for one savage, brittle moment all I'd wanted to do was hit him, and it was best I removed myself before I let that impulse loose.

Deeper in, Magrad grew wilder and grander with every passing step. Whatever disaster had befallen here hadn't struck the interior as savagely as the rest of the city, and there were still buildings that almost seemed intact. The stone flowed like water, curling into fantastic, draconic shapes that time had weathered past almost all recognition.

In the dim light of day, I could almost see the glory this place must have had once. I hadn't thought as much in those first few, awful hours the day before, Zieg's hand in mine as I hauled him through the haunted streets, but now I could. It was like the fear was gone. Or rather, the same old, comfortable fears had settled neatly back into place like they'd never even left and nothing was left in this jumble of broken buildings that could frighten me.

I rounded a corner and started trudging up a splintered avenue lined with the sagging bones of buildings. Ostensibly I was looking for any sign of Hiram Dell's passage, or that of any of his men's. That's what I told myself, at any rate. Of course, the idea of actually facing him here,  _now_ , didn't bear thinking about.

No sound broke the silence around me save the crunch of my boots through the snow and the harsh, struggling sound of my own breathing.

He'd been doing better. And me, I'd been doing better.

Not so you'd notice. Not in any way that really mattered. I was still the same stupid, scared runaway I'd always been; the only difference now was that I'd gotten a little older and taken a few more knocks to the head and now I probably wasn't the same person who'd stroll into a bar and let a bandit king scare her shitless and buy her a drink. Knowing me, I'd probably go on being that scared and stupid till the day I died- but I'd been bouncing around this frozen Continent for so long being jerked around by my own reins that it had been… nice, really. To have someone pulling with me.

It had been like having a friend again. Even if we weren't, not really.

The wind burned my cheeks as I stopped and caught my breath, my nose stinging in the cold. I had no idea where I was- my feet had been doing the guiding and they'd never lead me anywhere sensible yet.

Black Gods, but I was tired.

The thought was dull, but it cut all the same. I recognized the signs. I wasn't moving right- my feet weren't as steady underneath me as they should have been and breathing came hard, too hard. I felt like I had at the beginning of my training, when Dad had been after me the hardest.

In a way, it made me miss those first few, frantic nights in Furni, back when all I had to do was pick a direction and keep running, keep picking fight after pointless fight because that was all I'd ever known how to do. I was never talented enough, never patient enough, and never smart enough to do anything more than butt heads with anything that moved, but I had enthusiasm and I had fury and I had the name of the War God on my lips and I'd thought that was enough. I'd thought that would always be enough. And when it hadn't been- when it really hadn't been- I just ducked my head down and closed my eyes and punched wildly into the darkness until something was stupid enough to get in my way. I'd followed Dell and told myself that it was what I wanted. I let him make me into a tool and swing me wherever he wished, because that's all I was, a blunt, blood-soaked instrument with more bad temper than good sense. That's all I'd ever been. And if I could wish for one thing, it would be that I'd never dragged Zieg into this.

I ground to a halt, my vision smearing at the corners. The snow, the stone, and the muddy sky blurred together until everything except the stark shape of the mountains stood out against the grey, silent and black and achingly foreign.

And there it was. The flat, immovable, hysterically funny truth, like a sucker-punch that you never saw coming and couldn't dodge if you tried. Everything became clear; everything laid itself out in front of me as if it had only been waiting for me to look

Dad wasn't coming after me.

It had been weeks.

It had been weeks upon weeks upon weeks.

He wasn't coming and he never would.

I was just one more failed student, and even if I had blood on my hands, he wasn't going to desert his post and cross the sea to comb the continent for one more failed student. He'd said it himself- he wasn't my father, and he'd stopped being my master the day I'd run away from home.

I'd convinced myself that he would. I've convinced myself that I had to keep running as far and as fast as I could from my landing point no matter what, without stopping to realize that the idea of Dad throwing down his claws and coming after me was so fucking ridiculous that it seemed more like a bad joke with every passing second.. I'd believed it the entire time, through Furni and Deningrad and Neet, through bandits and monsters and bad decision after bad decision because I  _knew_  that there had to be something hot on my heels for what I'd done, because that was the only way the world would continue to make any sense.

But things didn't work that way. This was a world where bandit kings ruled the roads unchallenged, where mothers died and took their husbands' hearts with them, where blue-eyed men sleepwalked through life with the ghosts of everyone they loved crowded at their shoulders, where men were crippled before their time and where best friends died because someone they loved killed them. Nothing made sense. Not my mad flight across the continent, not the reason why my cousin had joined up with a murderer, not the mystery of Zieg's war, and not why either of us had ended up here, battered and bruised and severed from everyone we loved. The world was a huge, implacable, haunted place, and I had been a fool to bring us here. Here, to Magrad, with the full force of winter on the horizon.

I had been such a colossal fool.

 _Fool,_  said my father's voice, cracking across the back of my head, and for a second the air darkened until I could hardly make out the surrounding city.  _FOOL_ , spat that hot, black voice from somewhere underneath my ribs that I had never gotten the measure of, and the pair of them kept shouting it, kept flinging it at me over and over again and the drain of Magrad had so worked on me by that point that I couldn't block it out if I tried. My hands came up and gripped the sides of my head to try and  _force_ myself back into calm, the tips of my claws digging painfully into my scalp as I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to-

I never stood a chance.

" _You idiot," Lotta said, her hair curling around her face, smiling so soft and fond it could nearly rip the heart out of you right there._

The effect was immediate and savage. Heat, searing heat washed up from my fists to ripple across the whole expanse of my skin. My back spasmed and suddenly I was bent over with both hands on my knees, my mouth flooding with saliva. For a second, I thought my eyes would boil and burst and leak across my face- the heat- and my legs shook under me so hard that I was terrified that they would fail me for good and I would fall.

My gut clenched. With great relief, I threw up.

I spent a grim eternity bent over like that while my stomach heaved and rolled and heaved and rolled again. I kept my eyes locked weak and watery on the sad, revolting remains of what little breakfast I'd managed to get down, fisting my hands on my knees until my breathing steadied and the heat subsided.

I'd never had a reaction that violent. Not in Furni, when things had still been…. fresh in my mind. Not even in Deningrad, when the memories had snuck up and clawed me when my guard dropped.

I could always shut it out before. That was how it worked. I could always lock my jaw and stiffen my hands and cram it back down into the dark, I could always fight but then that quiet moment on the landslide had ripped down a door I'd hammered shut weeks ago and now it was like I couldn't hold it back anymore.

My hands shook like Keys's shook these days. Like an old man's. All I could do was squeeze them tight and wait for calm to settle, the warped leather biting into my skin.

I suddenly wished, miserably, that I hadn't left Zieg on his own.

The roaring in my ears, the rising hum that I had been trying so hard to tamp down cut out with a crackle of sparks. There was a dragging sort of thump as I caught up with what had just passed through my head. I realized that I was holding my breath, my pulse hammering weakly in my ears.

My fingers clenched; bright, savage flares of pain running up from my hands.

I shook my head. A sharp, numb little jerk as I dismissed the thought almost as soon as it arrived. No. That's ridiculous. Lotta doesn't have anything to do with this. Lotta's gone. Zieg is just some poor fucker I duped into-

 _Oh_ , I thought, shivering. And then, humbly-  _Please no._

I think I laughed, then. Or something like it. It was an echo of Zieg's own laugh from the day before, that raw, horrifying thing that had turned my blood to ice. My hands came up to press against my bile-streaked mouth and then my control slipped right between my fingers.

I skidded down against the wall until I was sitting boneless in the snow.

 _I had to-_  I thought, swallowing repeatedly and actually  _hiccupping,_ my face dry as a bone _. I, I didn't mean to but I had to-_

 _I had to ask her,_  I thought, unable to stop.  _I went to over to her house and I asked her and she said yes. And she trained with me nearly every day after that because she loved me and because she'd never dreamed of being the only other kid to get Haschel to teach her. Her dad had done his best but he hadn't fought properly in years and she wanted to learn._

_She wanted to keep being friends._

I gripped my arms until the bruises throbbed and I bent at the waist and oh Soa, I laughed so hard I thought I'd die from it.

Mistake piled on top of mistake on top of mistake. A never-ending circle, drawing ever tighter around my neck.

He was here because of me. And it was killing him.

He was crumbling, I knew it. The strain was breaking him down, and underneath it was only terror and grief and the kind of cold crazy that no one could come back from. He was winding down with every passing minute and every trace of that wild-eyed, shining stranger I'd kicked into action like a hornet's nest was being stripped away from him.

 _The look on his face when he talked about them. His family. His lover. The look of a man who belongs to the dead, who walks with the dead, who is a dead man already save that he has not yet found the nerve to_  die _yet._

The next thought rang like a knell in my head.  _He won't lack for nerve much longer._

And Soa save me, I couldn't be there for that.

I refused to stand witness to that. I clung to that idea, gripping it for dear life.

No matter where I went, no matter where I ended up after this, I would not be around to see it happen. I wouldn't be the one to give him that final push. I wouldn't.

The snow slowly soaked through my clothes until I felt the bite of it travel up my thighs and sink down deep into my bones as if it meant to stay forever.

I found myself smiling stupidly down into my hands.  _I thought he would get better._

The thought was as small and reluctant as the resetting of a broken finger.  _I wanted him to get better._

 _Enough of that,_ said a voice in my head, gruff and unsurprised and fonder than I'd ever deserved, and this time I recognized it as Keys. It was a childhood voice, buried so deep in my bones that I knew I'd keep on hearing it till the day I died.  _Come away from that now, kid,_ he said, like I was small and still soft-handed and wandering too close to the stove.

I spat in the snow to clear my mouth, then wiped my face clean as best I could. I felt my thoughts lock slowly and neatly into place once again until the seam hardly showed, and then I stood up.

The process took longer than it should have, but I eventually got the measure of my feet and stood with my hand pressed flat against the wall for balance. The iron weighed heavy on my wrists, grounding me. Without thinking, I found myself tightening the straps on one of my armguards until the leather and plate fit smoothly against my arm once more.

And then something grabbed my attention by the shorthairs and yanked it back to the present because just like that-

The air flickered again.

It was the oddest thing. The barest shiver in the corner of my eye. It was nearly impossible to spot- just a muddied flicker around the outlines of the buildings nearest me. I blinked and brought my hand up to scrub at my vision before I abruptly remembered my claws and stopped myself before I punctured an eye. I settled for blinking once hard, and turning my head in a different direction, my heart thudding slowly and calmly in my chest.

When I opened my eyes, there was a sheen like an oil slick over the air. A slow, sluggish churn that wasn't caused by any wind I could feel.

I stood, frozen, that same unmistakable thrill of alarm still sounding in the back of my mind. An unquiet murmur buzzed in my bones, a whispered warning that crawled straight up from the base of my spine and flared outward.

 _Don't_ , I thought, licking my dry, ragged lips, my eyes fixed on the warping air _. Listen to your head for once in your goddamn life and head back like you're supposed to. Mullet has to have noticed you gone by now._

 _Go back and sit in that awful, cramped little building with our pathetic little fire and dwindling food supply while Zieg shivers and goes quietly, politely mad. Sit and wait for Dell to show up or wait for him not to, and go back to feeling trapped and_  useless _,_  I shot back.

There was a moment of indecision. A split-second of wavering while the meat behind my eyes throbbed and I weighed the risks.

If the only decision was to either head back or to shoulder on forward, the choice was clear. I chose.

That opening hum of warning still buzzed faintly in my bones, and despite myself, I found my shoulders relaxing. I had, without even thinking, gone into that loose, hyperaware state that shoved every thought to the bottom of the pile. Dreamily, I trailed my clawed hand along the edge of the wall as I broke a new path through the snow, the air coating the back of my throat thick as syrup. There was a tang on my tongue, a strong taste of metal and mold that silvered the inside of my mouth and weighed heavily on my lungs.

 _This was magic_ , I realized.

Not any kind I was familiar with. Not the kind you could safely trap inside a bottle and sell for a handful of coins on the street- not the  _manageable_  kind. This was strong, unfiltered, _old_ magic, the kind that ran the tips of its claws teasingly through my hair and sparked tremors down my skin.

Rouge didn't have much like it- but we did have something of our own, out on the reef. A place where no gulls circled and no fish were to be found. Lotta's dad said that is was as if the air couldn't fill a sail there, and on a calm day if you looked down, down into the depths you could make out spiraling shapes of stone and shifting lights.

 _You'd have to be crazy to wander into the thick of this,_ I thought as I kept unsteadily walking forward.  _You would have to be scooting so far over the edge that a little magic-scorched air like this would be nothing more than a breeze ruffling your hair._

And that, I realized with a sudden pounding of my blood in my ears that left me dizzy, was what I should have been looking for all along.

It wasn't enough that Magrad was isolated- that wouldn't have tickled Dell's fancy any more than the Evergreen had. It wasn't enough that the dead crowded the streets and shouldered each other for room in every window.

He needed someplace that you'd have to be as crazy as he was just to gain entrance.

I'd known where to find him. I'd  _always_ known. He'd wielded me like a big Claire-shaped hammer at the kneecaps of the world and all the while he'd been making me see that I could walk into any darkness and stare down any foe with my legs locked and my fists trembling ready at my sides, because that's all you needed, that's all the excuse you could ever want. _Because life isn't a home or a family or a story with a happy ending coming its way, life isn't a blue-eyed man with long fingers and crooked shoulders who maybe you thought you could worm your way inside someday- life is a long, slow, messy slide down into the dark and the only thing that matters is to never go like your mother did._

The hornets rattled up from the hollows of my bones, and Soa above, my vision  _swarmed_  with them.

My lips moved-  _a prayer? -_ and that same searing heat rose up from my belly as that hot, black shape deep within me stalked the boundaries of its cage and snarled warnings into deaf ears. An entirely different voice was still muttering to  _go back, go back now,_  but the oppressive weight all that old magic moving over my skin struck a chord in me that I couldn't name. My fists were locked, and I barely registered the sting of scabs splitting open and the dull ache of hurts that went bone deep-  _he was right, he was right, I would have ugly hands-_  and my eyes had drifted shut ages ago. I was feeling my way by instinct, stumbling through the snow.

A tug drew me in ever onward, and maybe  _this_  was why I'd chosen the route I had, in my confusion and guilt. It was like a compass needle pointing true north- an unconscious thing. My lungs struggled to breathe through all the heavy, latent magic and then my foot connected with something solid and my eyes flew open by themselves.

The sky had darkened like a bruise, warped and greening around the edges. I had reached the city's heart.

The square I had blundered into was roiling with shadows, packed from corner to corner, and oh, I could hardly breathe, I could hardly  _think._  My mouth opened and I drew it in like oil, and for an eternity of a second I felt a massive weight pressing down on my shoulders, the prick of claws around my neck, and then I fell to my knees, gasping, as the heat suddenly _spiked._

My hand reached out and clutched the hunk of rubble I'd stumbled against with for balance as I fought to regain my control. My fingers jerked and clenched spasmodically- my spine arched, beyond my control- and then my vision went black,  _hot_  black, and oh Soa it hurt, it hurt worse than anything. I'd had enough- I'd head back, I would, I wasn't brave enough for this, I never was  _make it stop._

I don't know how long I spent trapped in that second fit, shaking like a fever victim, like my mother had. The pain, mercifully, leveled, and I wrapped my shaking hands around the heft of it and squeezed down until I could manage it more easily. My eyes were fixed on the stone in front of me- milky-grey and as smooth as concrete.

It's funny the things you'll think in a crisis.

 _Magrad is made of black stone,_  I thought, as if from a great distance.

I couldn't help myself. I looked up.

And up.

A grimy, crudely-carved statue dominated the center of the ruined square.

I was at its feet, dwarfed by it. A blunt, featureless head ran down into a misshapen body the color of an excised tumor. It wasn't graceful in the least. It didn't have any of the faded nobility the humans of old had put into their work- it didn't even resemble that sad, ugly thing we'd found in the mountains. Stubby claws tipped foreshortened arms, and I had never seen a more awkward, uglier piece of work in all my life.

It was pathetic. More than that, it was almost laughably unimpressive. It was awkward and ancient and nothing to fear, and there was  _nothing_. I knew there was nothing.

And yet-

The shadows gathered about its head, whispering.

I felt as transfixed as I had when I'd made the mistake of looking into the gaze of the Jewel Eye, all those days ago. My heart beat sluggishly and unevenly in my chest and I swore I could smell flesh cooking and hear the bubble-burst of skin melting. The black weight of some nigh-uncontrollable fury was throwing itself against the walls of my mind, the ice splintering beneath its feet, and it wasn't  _my_  fury but it was snarling so loudly I swore it would echo off the surrounding city. There was nothing to hit- There was nothing to  _hit_  and I had never been so afraid before in all my life.

I don't know how long I would have gone on staring if that shout hadn't come from behind me.

It might have been my name. It might have been only a wordless, animal burst of noise.

I turned, and there was he was.

Ragged and bare-headed, and just as wild around the eyes as yesterday. He couldn't have been more than twenty yards away- it was so hard to gauge distances in this miasma.

_Of course he'd come after me. Of course he did. I'd held his hand and dragged him through the streets and I'd told him we were comrades and his face had frozen like that word alone had the power to gut him where he stood but he'd taken it seriously even if I hadn't quite known the full importance of it and if I died he would mourn me like he mourned everything else. He's loyal to the bone even if he is half-mad and sick with grief, and he had followed me even when I'd thought very hard about leaving him for good this time._

His coat was gone. His shirtsleeves were unbuttoned, flapping loosely around his forearms, and he was so pale in that rotten light; pale skin and pale hair and pale, flaking lips and I never should have left him on his own. I had thought of an animal when I'd heard that noise, and an animal was right- the kind of animal that's been chained up in the dark and hit and hit and  _hit_ until its body forgot its own shape. His face was wild and stark and empty, every trace of anything rational or present or remotely intelligent scoured out from within. He looked like a dead man. And I stared at him through the roiling haze of all that magic and wondered why I'd never seen it, why I'd tried to spur him on ahead when it was clear that he'd always been a dead man and would always  _be_ a dead man and that I would never see him in any other light again.

If I had thought the shadows thick here, that was nothing compared to the way they swarmed around him. They battered against him like crows, and I saw him clench his fist to prevent himself from flailing at them like a madmen. He saw them. Of course he saw them. It was all he  _could_ see.

But then he did shout my name. His voice tore in half over it with hoarseness but he shouted my name.

And like a man struggling through cold tar, he began to run.

The shadows swarmed him, flickering black and then a burning red, his sword was knocking awkwardly on his hip like he'd just barely managed to buckle it on before he'd left. My legs were shaking beneath me, my eyes locked on that ragged, stricken figure running towards me, and Black Gods below he was shouting again , an endless, lunatic, string of- "No no no _NO NO NO NO NO!"_

Zieg hit me at full force a mere second before that clawed hand came down on where I had been standing.

**0.-0.-0**

Let's say there's a story.

It isn't such a good one. There's no heroes, for one. There's a girl who pretended at being a bandit and a man who pretended at being dead, and between them both they made a mess of things because bandits are nothing more than murderers and dead men are never anything more than dead men. The bandit girl shouldered her anger and terror and guilt and made it into a weapon and the dead man swallowed his grief like broken glass, and they fought each other and fought the world and finally found themselves in a frozen city too tired to fight much of anything.

Neither of them knew the first thing about what went into a good story.

The only stories that the bandit-murderer girl had to her name were the ones her uncle had given her every night he had the raising of her. Her own story was merely a tangled trail of bad mistakes and worse decisions stretching all the way back to a training platform by the sea where the gulls circled and waves pounded the rocks below. All she had to her name was her father's grit and her father's bleakness and her father's ability to duck her head in the face of pain and  _deny_  it.

Zieg's nose was buried in my neck.

His nose was buried in my neck and his arm was bent awkwardly behind my back from when he'd hit me, and we were lying in a squashed, bruised tangle in the snow. I had snow up my nose and what felt like a cracked rib and everything hurt but everything was  _clear_. His heart hammered like a bird's, skipping wildly from one beat to the next- I could feel it echoing through my own chest- but he wasn't moving and he wasn't breathing and nothing, nothing could scare me worse than that.

A sudden stab of warning was all I had to go by. I hadn't heard it move before and I didn't hear it move then but trust me when I saw that _I_   _didn't hear it_ just barely enough to know to clamp my arms around Zieg and  _roll._

There was a muffled  _whomp!_ of impact from the ground just behind us but I'd let instinct and muscle take over and I had him tight in my arms and I didn't let go for anything. Zieg's only response was to grip me tighter around my midsection, his face still buried in the join between my neck and shoulder, but when I finally came out of my roll and wallowed to my feet, there he was standing next to me, his hair standing up in wild tufts, his shirt collar pulled to the side, and there, creeping up over the edge of his shoulder, the red melted edge of the ruin on his back.

He wasn't looking at me. He wasn't looking at me and every scrap of relief I'd felt burned away in that instant and his jaw was set and there were spots of color high on his cheeks that I had never seen before and the  _look on his face-_

I turned and together we faced the dead thing in the snow.

It stood as lightly as a water bird in the ruins of the city square, its stunted legs poised beneath it. It had recovered itself instantly from its earlier attack, with no indication given that it had ever moved at all. Its arms hung delicately at its sides, spindly, bone-white flesh running down into awkwardly oversized hands. It didn't even have claws. Its fingertips just ran to points.

My hand had gone around his without my even noticing. I was squeezing so hard my entire arm was trembling as fear,  _true_ fear, blooming out from the center of my chest. I'd never felt so much like screaming in sheer bloody panic in my entire life. There are only so many things a human mind can take in throughout the course of one day, and right then I simply failed to understand that terrible, ancient, thing and I never would.

It had no mouth. It had no mouth and seven green unblinking eyes clustered in the center of its head and oh sweet Soa it was so  _tall._  I didn't know if it was actually that tall or if it was a trick of the greening, angrily churning light around its head, but I knew then in my gut that ten men didn't stand a chance against this thing. Twenty, even. And here we were, just the two of us, alone and heartsick and half-mad in Zieg's case and possibly all-mad in mine and it hit me then that we could not, ever, fight this thing on open ground.

It regarded us incuriously from across the square. Its head shifted minutely, the slightest twitch from left to right.

If anything it seemed  _confused._

The same calm that had come over me that night on the landslide held me fast. I knew the measure of it now. It was a chance, nothing more. A chance I was willing to take.

"Come on," I said, and my voice only shook a little but I tamped it down flat.  _No._ "Come on, we're gonna-" but I didn't even give myself a chance to finish because I had his hand tight in mine and our opportunity was growing smaller by the second so I did the only thing that made sense at the time and threw all my weight into the opposite direction as hard as I could.

Only to have the pain of a nearly separated shoulder drop me in my tracks.

There was blood in my mouth as soon as I hit the ground. I had bitten my tongue. For a moment I thought the creature had rushed us, but one panicked glance saw that it was still standing bizarrely in place, that churning light around its head growing darker by the second.

At the last possible second, Zieg had dug in his heels and  _balked._

I wallowed to my feet, one hand clutching my shoulder, and spat to clear my mouth, a reflex action. My hand was still wrapped clumsily around Zieg's fingers- his hand was stiff and unresponsive in mine. Confusion and shock both threatened to overwhelm me and I felt my control almost fray to shreds right there, but then-  _No. No no no. Not again. Not_ here.

He'd frozen again. Like yesterday, when I'd dragged him through the city with his white-knuckled grip on my wrist. I'd barely managed to get his feet moving then, and I didn't know if I could do it here, and definitely not with a fight on my hands.

 _A fight you can't win, ever,_  said the voice in my head, and at that a yawning gulf of dread opened beneath my feet that threatened to swallow me.

"Come on," I said, and tried to sound gentle, but somehow my voice found a way to make it harsh and pleading. My fingers found his sleeve and tugged ridiculously, like a child. A tug that turned into an outright yank on my second try and oh Soa, there it was, I was begging him. "Don't- Zieg. Please."

He gave no indication he heard me. He gave no indication he even realized I was there at all. Every scrap of his attention was fixed on that terrifying figure in the center of the square, leaving no room for anything else. I felt a tremor run through him; that was all, even when I broke down and gave him a full-force  _swat!_  on his shoulder, a blow which should have sent him staggering that he didn't seem to feel at all.

I swallowed down convulsively on the lump in my throat, my eyes smarting uselessly. My heart thudded so loudly in my ears that I could scarcely hear myself think. Think. I had to _think._

I could see how it was going to happen. Any minute now, the creature would break and rush us and I wouldn't be able to stop it, I wouldn't be able to stop it one bit. He would stand here, frozen and noble and doomed and he would die for it.

I shouted something then. I kept shouting, all throughout. I hit him again, and I kept hitting him. It became a kind of frenzy, for all that he didn't feel it once. It was if I were watching from a distance, seeing myself letting loose the ugliest string of curses I had ever heard in my life, my eyes wild and red-rimmed, my fists thudding off his back without effect. He would die. He would die, here, in the snow. For all his courage and all his useless honor and all that I'd  _saved_ him, for all that we were  _comrades, damnit, don't tell me that didn't mean something!_

I didn't recognize the sound of my own voice by the end. I wasn't crying, I wasn't, but my throat had swollen nearly shut and I was so hoarse that I had to stop. I had broken my voice on him. I had no idea what I'd said, only it hadn't worked, he hadn't moved, and nothing was as it should be. I had both of my arms wrapped around his elbow, my burning forehead resting against the upper part of his arm as my gut clamped in on itself like a fist.

I couldn't leave him there. That was all it came down to. I had been running ever since I hit land in Furni and I should have run now, but when the time came, I couldn't do it.

 _I saved him,_ I thought, miserable and cold and rocking back and forth as I breathed in the smell of him, wood smoke and green.  _I did. I saved him._

I don't know what caused me to look up when I did. A jerk of my head, that was all.

But I looked up to discover that his eyes were on mine and Zieg was looking at me.

He needed a shave, I noticed distantly. His cheeks glinted gold in the grey light, the stubble outlining the hard lines of his mouth. His hair was as ragged as old hay and no, he hadn't slept, he hadn't slept for the last hundred years from the looks of it. His lashes were short and ridiculously golden, his eyes red-rimmed and raw at the edges, but still bluer than they had any business being. And I knew that I looked a mess myself with my eyes still raw from earlier and the remnants of greening bruises mapping their way across my face and my lips all chewed to hell because in the middle of the night I didn't scream I  _bit_ , but all that dropped away because he was looking at me. He was looking at me. Not at the monster. Not at that ancient thing, not at the nightmare that warped the very air and made the light bend around it like a reflection in curved glass. My breath hitched in my throat, and thought  _this is it, isn't it_? This was the breath before the plunge, the moment before I couldn't take it back, not ever, and his blood would be on my hands no matter what.

"Please," I said- Soa, had I ever sounded that young before?- and then again, " _Please."_ but then I stopped, the words gone dead in my throat, because something in his face changed and he  _smiled._

He smiled. That was all. He smiled at me.

Soft and sorrowful and rueful, down to the bone. And beneath it all something foreign and strange that wrapped it all up into a humming sense of both expectation and regret that snagged something deep inside of me and broke it easily between its fingers.

He reached out with one hand, his roughened fingers dragging through the short hairs at the base of my scalp. His hand fitted itself behind my neck and I knew before he even did it that this was one of those moments that I would doomed to play over and over again in my head until the day I died. The look of him standing over me, the weight and realness of him there in the snow. The shape of him that I had memorized and tucked away long before this moment had ever come to pass.

And then he tugged me close and placed a kiss on the top of my head that couldn't have been more of an apology and a goodbye if he tried.

Zieg let go and turned in one smooth motion, the warmth of his fingers leaving my neck as he closed them around the hilt of his sword. The scars on his wrist gleamed a dull white in the cold, biting deep into flesh and tendon. There was something inevitable about it, as if nothing ever could have been any different, just as bandit girls are born to run themselves to death and lonely swordsmen are go out like heroes, and right then I remembered that dusty clearing all those days ago. I remembered the sword in his hand. I remembered how tall and easily he'd stood, the looseness in his shoulders, the tang of his sweat in the air, the shocking gleam of his teeth in a smile you'd have but to blink once to miss entirely. I remembered words by firelight and the tall shape of him on the road in front of me and how every crooked, badly-healed line of his body made my heart hurt to see it. I remembered a thousand things that stood no chance at all in the face of this one terrible moment that would wipe them all away forever, this one final failure that I would live with for the rest of my life.

He turned away from me, drawing his sword, and deep down I would never forgive him for that.

And then the world exploded.

There was a blinding flash of light followed by a bone-deep, concussive  _thud_  that lifted me off my feet and slammed me into the ground before I could so much as blink. Stars tore across my vision- the air knocked from my lungs as easily as if I'd taken a throw back home. I had no idea what had happened, and for a moment all I could do was curl inwards around the pain and listen to my heart scream in my chest. It was a second or two before I could so much as open my eyes, and when I did, what I saw pinned me to the ground with fear.

The dead thing in the snow had not been idling. The throb of unreleased magic around its head was gone and now it drew itself up to its full, terrifying height. But it was too late, far too late, because Zieg had been bent low and running ever since it had fired its bolt and he had finally closed the distance between them.

It took a step back. That was all it had time for. And then Zieg cannoned into it shoulder-first, burying his sword in its abdomen up to the hilt.

It retaliated faster than I ever could have believed, and to my horror, Zieg didn't even try to draw his sword free, he let  _go_ instead, dancing back out of its reach with his hands empty at his sides. I saw its next move coming as if from a dream, a sideline swipe that would break his spine and leave him broken in the snow, but then he bent low at the waist and _rippled_ under the blow, his hair ruffling in the breeze of its passage. As soon as he straightened, he lunged forward into its reach once more, planting his foot on its chest and yanking his sword free before it had a chance to attempt another strike.

It was as if I was watching the battle take place from underwater- the creature shining pale and alien in the murky light, Zieg's hair glowing like a streak of sunshine as he slipped in and out of its guard like a hunting shark. Even the sound of their battle seemed warped and stretched- the air fairly  _throbbed_ in my ears as I watched- and all around the edges of the square it grew darker and darker until it seemed as if the entire city were crowding around the two of them, absorbed in their desperate struggle.

I had never seen him fight before.

I'd tangled with him briefly on the roadside; that was true. Neither of us had taken it seriously. Neither of us had truly wanted to kill the other. He'd been fast. He'd been canny. He'd taken every advantage and he hadn't given an inch and it was enough to let me know that if he'd been in the right mood he could have made the game much,  _much_  uglier. He knew enough of ugly things to see it done.

This was different.

I had thought it impossible to fight, and it  _was._ It didn't act like any of the beasts I had met on the Continent, or even like a  _man,_  for all that it stood on two feet, but more like some fantastical construct, like a clockwork toy. There was no passion, no anger, in the way it swatted down at him, just blinding speed and a chilling, single-minded purposefulness.

But there Zieg was, flinging himself at it over and over again in some perverse, berserk fury, his face  _serene_  with hatred, and this wasn't about me, this had never been about me. This was him giving in to his anger, drinking it in like wine.

It was so simple,the way he fought- so terrifyingly simple. There was no relying on patterns, no carefully executed drills, just fury and motion and  _skill._  I had seen him in action and I knew him for a man who thought with his body more than anyone I'd ever met and even if his body was an instrument someone had broken over their knee once or twice, he still played his own raggedy tune for all he was worth. I had fought him in the dust of the road and I had danced my own little death dance with him there but he hadn't really meant it. Zieg wasn't a man who killed treacherous little bandit girls any more than he was a man who would fight to save his honor and I saw that now. A swordsman. That's what he was, that's what he always was- a  _born_  swordsman.

It reared its head back like a cobra and  _stamped_ with one foot. Zieg shrank out of its reach, his teeth showing in something that might have been a laugh and seemed more a snarl and his sword licked out before it could regroup, scoring it on its midsection with a cut so casual and contemptuous I felt the heat of it all the way from where I was standing. He struck and he struck and he  _struck,_  surging up behind each advance with all the force of a landslide, daring and brilliant and ferocious and  _real._ And in seeing it I knew then that this was who he was in the darkness of his own head- a mute, terrible, figure with a sword in his hand, born to dash himself to death against all the snapping teeth of the world. Everything I'd seen, every mournful smile I'd wrung from those lips had never been the full truth of it and now it was as if he had completed before me. The pieces finally snapped together as they had refused to do all throughout the time I'd known him.  _Had I ever known him?_

I watched, having finally gotten my feet under me, the blood pounding in my ears as the realization crawled up and locked its fingers around my throat before I could shake it free.

It should have been enough. It should have.

No matter how many times he hacked at that creature, no matter how many times he slipped past its defenses and  _gouged_ it, it didn't so much as fall to its knees. Before my eyes, he dealt that thing a blow that should have spilled its guts on the snow for all to see, just as he had a handful of times before, but nothing spewed forth from that wound, nothing at all.

I saw the edges flap together as it staggered back from the attack. I saw them stick. And then, as if out of some kind of nightmare, I saw them  _begin to close._

There were no words for what I felt when I realized the weight of all that Zieg had pitted himself against. The full importance of what he was actually doing in front of my eyes.

There were no words for what I felt then, watching him as he began, slowly, relentlessly, to tire.

The more I watched, the more I realized what a mockery this fight truly was. It didn't matter how many times Zieg hit it. It didn't matter how ferociously he fought or how hotly his anger burned; it made no difference. It was wearing him down. It had survived for Soa-knows-how-long here in the center of this haunted city and it would survive this.

It batted at him as casually as a cat bats at a mouse whose back it had already broken.

I don't know how long it would have gone on if two things hadn't happened almost too quickly to see.

Zieg threw himself to the side, the blow ripping through the air just above his head, and brought his sword down to cut its arm cleanly off at the elbow.

And then it hit him so hard with its other arm that the blow seemed to fold him in half.

I saw him fall.

I saw him fall and as I watched the moment warped and tore at the edges until he seemed to hang in midair for a small eternity before the ground rushed up to meet him, and I felt a sudden stab of perfect memory at the sight.

 _She fell forever. It took her forever to hit the ground. And there you stood, sweat stinging in your eyes and all you could think was that you'd finally lined your hands up right and the punch hadn't hurt at_ all _-_

He landed in a spray of thrown snow, the stolen sword flying from his grip, and didn't move.

The monster regrouped, its shoulders jerking and flexing spasmodically as it drew itself high. It held the stump of its arm clear from its body, the hand itself having landed uselessly in the snow yards away. The end of the stump bulged and bubbled outwards, new flesh surging outwards as I watched. There was no blood, no bone, no exposed muscle, only the same milky-grey tissue that made up the rest of it. The new flesh separated into tiny, weakly churning fingers at the end even as it formed, each one sharpening into stubby points.

Zieg heaved himself onto one knee in the snow, dazed, his shoulders hunched and his eyes dull and unsurprised. He had one arm locked around his waist from where the creature had struck him, his face dull.

There was blood on his lips.

 _He kissed you on the head,_ I thought, and there was something stark and vital to it that I couldn't ignore.

_He kissed you on top of your head and then he turned away to go down brawling like he had the blood of Rouge in his veins same as you. He kissed you and he'd hesitated, hadn't he. For a second or two he hadn't been lined up for that at all, for a second you thought he'd go and kiss you full on the mouth like someone straight of Keys' bullshit stories but he'd corrected himself at the last minute before laying it like a brand in the middle of your hair. And you wondered, didn't you. You wondered._

The creature advanced one slow, precise step at a time, as if there was no need to hurry now that the prey was already down and waiting for the last blow. And he was waiting, I saw that now. He had had his moment of fury. He had had his last kiss, his last swing of his sword, his last and least of all his heartbreaks. He lifted his head and he watched it coming, his chest rising and falling evenly, and his sword lying mere yards away but he wouldn't lunge for it, would he? His eyes never so much as traveled to it. He kept them fixed and mute on that terrible, alien creature and he wasn't angry anymore and I had the feeling he had bled all his anger out in the snow in preparation for this moment and would never reach for it again. And I knew then- knew it and couldn't shy away from knowing it, like I'd known this was a suicide from the way his fingers shook when he reached towards my face. I knew that he would never make a sound when it killed him, that he hadn't cried out, not once, during whatever long, drawn-out ordeal it had been that had flayed the skin from his back and left him to heal wrong around it like a lightning-struck tree. He would die without a sound, here in this haunted place.

I don't know what noise I made. I don't know if there were words in it.

But something reached him, even then, and I think that was when he remembered I was there.

His face dragged upward, and then it was if that ageless monster wasn't there at all, as if everything else in the world flickered and dimmed until the only thing in the world left was him was the two of us, separated by age and distance and memory and surrounded by all the endless, murmuring ghosts of Magrad. And he didn't smile and he didn't weep but something in his face cracked right down the middle and I remembered back when I'd first met him and how natural it had been to spring to his defense, how when it came down to it he would never fight, he would just let the world kick him when he was down, because right here was a man who did not love himself and saw nothing there worth saving. And Soa above, he was sorry. His eyes bled it. He was  _so_  sorry.

My breath had gone still in my chest.

My hands relaxed at my sides. They did not shake.

I felt the smoothness of the leather against my skin, the snugness of the fit around my arm. The metal plates shifted and settled as I flexed, strong enough to deflect a sword. They smelled like iron and the sea, and faintly of my cousin. I remembered the day he'd been given them. I remembered the day they'd been given to me.

And then the answer was so clear that there had never been a question after all. Ready and waiting for me to slip my hand inside and tighten the straps.

My people's fights were the losing fights. Ours were the  _raiders,_ the laughing, dog-eyed motherfuckers who flung torches onto rooftops and made off with screaming women. Ours were metal weapons fished from the sea or cobbled together from worthless pig iron- our fists and  _feet_. Ours was the duty to stand between someone and the bloody tide and all the hungry sharks that circled there. The odds were never ours and we went down cursing every time.

And this, I would do this for him. This was all I had in me to give and I would give it to him because it was all I'd been trained for, the kiss he had given me was burning on top of my head even now and I could see the way it had to be, the way it was always going to be.

 _I never had it in me to be any different,_ I thought, struggling with a burst of laughter that threatened to tear my throat out with it. I could already feel the heat rising.  _I never-_

The heat bloomed across my skin and that hot, black shape lay waiting in the darkness, but it never expected me to simply stick my hand down into the depths, grab it by the scruff of the neck and  _yank._

It was like pulling my legs free from the spokes of a wheel.

Time boiled and thickened and slowed to a weak churn as I felt that black power struggle briefly in my fist, right where my father said I should always keep my heart. Soa, I was burning up like a dying star, boundaries crumbling and charring into ash as I set my teeth and pulled all the harder.

There was no controlling this; there never had been. It came and it went like a hurricane, leaving me bruised and bloody-mouthed in its wake every time. For a moment my father's voice hammeredat my ears harder than ever, and all tangled up in it was the burlap-and-baling-wire twang of Hiram Dell-  _like a whirlwind of wantin' to_ hurt  _somebody, kitten-_ but then I reached the heart of the black water and in the space of a single breath, it was  _there,_ all that power slamming inside my bones like it had never left. My vision blacked and all was heat and darkness and shining teeth and I had never realized how much it hurt to fight something like this until I stopped trying. There was pain, yes, but there was also a crunch of pleasure that was pain's closest sister.

When my eyes opened once more, the entire world was outlined in stark charcoal and blood, and then the world smeared and tore like a rotten sheet and Magrad revealed itself to me.

There it was all around me, undeniable and terrible in its grandeur. The ruined square of broken black stone and half-destroyed buildings were gone. The ruined city in the north was restored to what it must have been back in the moldering fairy-stories of my youth. I had seen Deningrad in its full splendor and I had seen the muddy streets of Neet and I thought I knew my share of cities, but they were nothing in comparison with this.

Buildings rose untouched and undamaged in flawless, orderly rows radiating from this single, central point, flags unfurling lazily from every rooftop in half a hundred different colors. There were clean black flagstones under my feet and the ghost of some long-vanished summer sun licking across my skin and all the smells of a living city were hitting me all at once- men and animals and wood-smoke and iron, and buried behind it all like some awful promise,  _blood._

There was no time to take it in. There was  _no time._ A second's look was all I allowed myself, and then I was running, pulling on that black power in great hanks and handfuls until I thought I'd burst from it.  _Save him,_ was the only coherent thought in my head as some non-existent wind sent the flags snapping against the sky, and Black Gods below, it hurt to think, it hurt to even remember the words.  _Save him save him smash it KILL IT-_

I tore my eyes away from the cityscape and searched wildly for the creature and the broken man beneath it, only to realize to my panic that I'd lost track of them. But then, no, it wasn't that they had moved, it was that my view was blocked by rows and rows of-

 _Oh Soa,_ I thought, my thoughts giddy and red-tinged.  _He wasn't lying, he wasn't, he wasn't even crazy_

They appeared as little more than smudged pillars that might once have been human figures, wavering like columns of weak smoke. It was unbelievable that I had never seen them, never felt them brush against me while I wandered the streets- they were  _undeniable_ in their numbers.

They filled the square from corner to corner, details shivering into life and flickering out just as quickly. I saw helmets, spears, swords- men and women and soldiers and civilians, all the restless dead of Magrad from all the thousands of years this place had sat forgotten in the north. They had no eyes for me and they posed no threat, every single one of them standing with their heads turned towards Zieg like flowers starved for the sun.

Through the haze of adrenaline and raze, I saw the way they circled around them both, leaving a shrinking circle around that deathless white monster. They gathered around Zieg almost  _shyly,_ here and there a ghostly hand outstretched to brush his sleeve or his shoulder, and Soa save us, there was so much weight and reverence behind it, and so much  _love_ , that I would never understand it, not ever.

And Zieg, that crippled, bent figure still miles and miles from where I was, had his eyes shut tight, and I knew it wasn't just to avoid seeing his death coming, and knew now why he'd been biting down a scream ever since yesterday. He was strong enough to wait and he was strong enough to stay silent and he was stronger than I or anyone else would ever come close to knowing, but this was not a matter of strength. This was a matter beyond bearing.

I was running. I was running even though I couldn't remember starting and couldn't remember how much ground I'd already covered. Every step felt like I was heaving my way through boiling mud. The ghosts of Magrad shrank before me like fog retreating before hot sun, sending a bolt of satisfaction curling up from the base of my spine. I recognized fear when I saw it, and accepted it as my due.  _I was blood, I was purpose, I was the hill of water that ripped entire villages from the map, I would paint myself in blood and crown myself with victories-_

The eerie, turbulent glow around the creature's head had returned, charging for one final blast. But then, like a scene from a dream, a ghost, one of thousands, reached out.

It was the only one among all the thousands to reach out to him properly.

It reached out with one hand, wavering like a heat mirage in the shifting false light of that terrible undying city. Zieg's eyes were still screwed shut, and I was close enough now to see the dent in his cheek from where he was biting down so hard that he had to be swallowing blood.

It laid its hand down on his shoulder in a gesture of both finality and unspeakable tenderness, and Zieg broke beneath it.

There was no other word for it. He broke.

And then the world shivered and splintered apart at every corner and right then I honestly hated him for it.

That one emotion was purer and stronger than anything I'd felt until this moment. It was  _real._ I hated him for flinching. I hated him for his weakness- here, of all places,  _now,_ on the knife blade of his own death.  _Coward,_ I raged into the howling darkness surrounding my thoughts.  _Coward coward COWARD_ COWARD-

I had always wanted to hit him at times like this, always wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake the fear from him until his bones cracked. Part of me  _always_ wanted to punish weakness wherever I found it, and maybe that was because I really was my father's daughter and maybe it was because that was just the sort of person I was, but I had never quite been able to quell the savage urge to bite whenever I saw him at his weakest. Because the truth was, I hadn't  _liked_ that man I'd met all those weeks ago in Furni. It was why I'd stolen from him, why I'd refused to look back on that theft as anything other than what he had coming; because that's what you did with rotten wood- you beat on it and you beat on it until you reached the true grain and then you broke your hands on it.

And Soa help me, I'd actually held back from it. The more I'd gotten to know him, the more I'd gotten to know that stark, dangerous creature he kept carefully tied back at all times like it reminded him too much of being alive, the more I'd gotten to  _like_ it. That was the worst part of it all- how easy he was to like when he had some iron in his spine and a sword in his hand, and how much he made me want to look away in embarrassment whenever he crumbled.

And I'd spent three days watching him wade into the water up to neck, helpless to do anything other than watch him drown, and every day I'd wrapped my hands around my anger and smothered it before I could give in to it. Every day it had frayed away at my control a little more- but control was something I'd shredded and left by the wayside long before this point, and no sooner did I fumble for it than I realized to my horror that it  _wasn't there._

My anger, once unleashed, was stronger by far than whatever blind fury I'd called up from the darkness. Something inside me trembled as soon as it hit me, and then like a fire devouring what was offered and roaring up to claim the rest, I found myself shifting in response.

That creature was a mute, dumb, beast- nothing more. It would be dealt with.

What drew me now like a magnet to true iron was the sight of that bent figure before it, cringing like a kicked dog in the snow.

There was a rushing sound just behind my ears, a rising howl of history finally catching up with itself and ready to break a world of horrors upon my head. It was all so clear to me now, all of it laid out in perfect, merciless detail- there had only ever been one road leading to this moment and I had thrown myself down it without hesitation.

I was going to kill him.

I would kill him in one frenzied blow after another and it wouldn't be clean and it wouldn't be quick and in all likelihood I would bloody my arms clear up to my shoulders before it was over. And once I'd finished with him, I would turn on the monster standing over him and I would kill it too, and when that was finished I would have to search the snow for the forgotten sword and open both arms wrist to elbow because there could be no going through that again. Just as Keys had always told me to do if I ever found myself in a Raider hold- _no hesitation honey, you just find something sharp and you do it clean before they come back for you._ There would be no more running. No seeing his face and my hands doing to the deed from this night on to all the rest, because I would not live with that that.

I fought it. I fought it with everything I had.

I could have sooner torn my own arm off than stop this now but I fought all the same,  _screaming_ inside my head and searching for something, anything, that would turn me from this path. I clawed down through layer after layer of darkness and horror and the words of old prayers and memories of every fight I'd ever been in, but no matter how far I dug, I found nothing more than more darkness and more empty directionless fury given shape and purpose by my own anger.

 _It's meant to save people,_ I thought, and it was then, for the first time, that I fully comprehended the sheer uselessness of all my father had given me, of the real joke that all my training and all my study had been. Oh Soa it hurt, it hurt so much, and it wouldn't hurt if I just gave in and let nature take its course but I couldn't,  _wouldn't,_  I would fight this until it tore me in two.  _The Art- meant to save-_ and then in a rush I was drowning in memory and half-remembered lessons and my father's voice shouting at me to  _focus,_ but he meant nothing now and never really had. I dug deeper and deeper, growing weaker and more numb with every layer, and there was nothing in my hands but flakes of dried blood and the ruinous smell of the hold of the ship that had taken me here and  _oh help, help me,_ there was nothing, there was nothing I could draw on, nothing left I could dredge up to save me now.

The city had vanished, and Zieg and the monster with it. I couldn't see. There was nothing now, like there had always been, and there was naught between me and the dark but my own shivering skin and the ache in my hands.

I had no defenses left. Memory poured in like water through a crack and I was drowning in it. Suddenly I was thirteen again and not good enough,  _never_ good enough, and my father had always been distant and always kept himself a step back from my growing up but now he was like a stone wall everywhere I turned, damning and disapproving and  _mean._ And then I was fifteen and still growing into my hands and feet and already so wrapped up tight in my anger that I couldn't remember ever  _not_ wanting to throw myself at the world fist-first and screaming. There had never been an outlet, never been a way for me to use my anger other than to turn it on myself and I wasn't getting anywhere and I wasn't learning anymore and that's when my father thought he needed to start training someone alongside me just to give me something to hit.

 _Something to hit,_ I thought raw and desperate, and that's what Lotta was the entire time, wasn't it, never a friend, never  _family_. It would have all been so much easier if I had picked someone else,  _anyone_ else, but I hadn't had time for friends and Lotta was the only one left, the only one who still had me over to her house even though I was usually so exhausted from training that I fell asleep on the kitchen table. She was the only one who talked to me about normal things like mending nets and gathering firewood and talking to boys and I'd nodded and eaten it up even though I'd known that my father's plans for me would never involve a husband as long as he thought I had something left to learn. And then I was sixteen and glaring at her from across the training platform wondering why she had to be so  _good,_ and I never told her how much I hated her for it.

I was drowning. I couldn't see and I couldn't feel anything and every weak, terrible thing I'd ever done heaped on me all at once and there were so many of them I thought I'd die from it. My father couldn't shout at me now and make me snap to attention like he used to and there were no Lotta's with their summertime hair and sweetheart smiles to tease me into acting brave for once in my life, and Keys was old and sick and hundred of miles away and he hadn't been able to help me from the very beginning. There was nothing, nothing, I could draw on to save me now.

I sank deeper and deeper, darkness flooding my eyes and nose and mouth and it didn't feel like anything, like anything at all. All I had left were scraps and fragments that slipped through my broken hands as soon as I fumbled for them.

 _They- they said,_ I thought, the words crumbling in my grip.

 _They said my mother talked to the War God,_ I thought at last, a lost little whisper that the darkness swallowed.

It was the last story I had left, the only one time and circumstance had not crushed and devoured. It was the last story that meant anything anymore. I had nothing else left, and time meant nothing here. I clutched at it out of need for comfort more than anything else, and Soa, I  _remembered._

 _She could outfight and outsmart everyone she ever met-_ I thought, reciting the words as they had been told. _A smile fit to knock your head clean off your shoulders-_

It was a joke, and a wretched one at that for me to think of this now, because I had never been my mother's daughter. I was too hard, too square, too locked in my own anger and I had none of her sweetness or strength or shocking wit and Keys used to laugh about it, saying that I'd need to put thirty pounds on the hips and learn to look a boy in the eye without blushing into flames before I had anything on her.

But it a spark, the only light in this choked and crushing blackness, and I curled feebly around it and tried to feed it what little of my strength remained to me. And it  _was_ a joke no matter what way I looked at it, because my mother could have saved him, my mother could have sauntered right into the heart of it and plucked him out of danger with a grin bitten between her teeth the whole time, and I was too much my father's daughter to ever-

No. No, that that wasn't it. That wasn't the story that had caught hold of me in the first place, and it wasn't what had drawn me.

I could feel it coming, feel it building like a wave that had yet to crest, and felt it buoying me up from the depths until I could wrap my ruined hands around it and  _remember._ And then Keys' voice broke through, like it always did when I needed it most, rich and deep and as crooked as they come, and I knew these words so well the shape of them was carved on the inside of my eyelids-

- _and your Mama, she walked straight into the heart of that fire._

_And your Dad, he followed her._

The pain was getting harder to manage by the minute, but the jolt I felt at that one shred of memory was enough to break through it long enough for recognition to flood me.

That was the truth I had been looking for. That was my father's curse and mine by default- to duck my head and follow into the flames and fight my way out once more.

And I  _remembered._  I did. I remembered the moment before the blast had torn me off my feet when Zieg had been outlined against the brightness, every crooked, dauntless line of him present and achingly familiar and something about it had bewildered me so much that I had wanted nothing more than to wrap my arms around my head and hide from it. And then he'd gone ahead into the fire with all his fury and all his grief and I had been left behind, as my father had been left behind, and no, that wasn't in the story at all, I would  _save him-_

It was horrific. I was deaf, mute, blind and dumb in the grip of it, and  _oh Lotta help me I can't see I can't see_  and I wasn't Zieg, I wasn't strong enough to keep a grip in the face of so much pain, I wasn't strong enough by miles and miles. But this was the one story I had to my name that had ever meant anything, the story of my fearless mother and my bitter father who had followed her into the flames, because my father had followed her and together they'd fought their way free and if I was doomed to repeat my father's mistakes then this was the doom I chose freely.  _And oh Lotta, please, it hurt, it hurt so much and there was no room for me left around the edges, and I couldn't see and I couldn't take it back and I was so sorry, I never meant it, you were the only thing that ever meant anything and I can't see and I can't-_

A scream split itself in half across my throat, and Zieg's eyes burst open right in front of me, wide and startled and blue. I could see myself reflected in his eyes, both arms spread wide as if in supplication.

I caught him just as another flare of light ripped the ground out from under us.

The world roared and throbbed white, the metallic tang of spent magic crackling throughout the air and washing over my skin. The ground and earth and sky all shook and melted into one another and I wrapped Zieg in my arms as tenderly as a mother holding her child, and I saved him, I did. He was the only one of either of us that had ever truly needed saving and I did it.

That was all I had wanted.

That was all I had asked for.

I relaxed and let go of the tatters of my control, and the sudden absence of pain made me want to weep. It didn't matter what happened to me now. It never had.

With a sigh, I let go, and all the voices of my family and loved ones that told me who I was cut out at once as the darkness rose up to claim me as its own.

**0.-0.-0**

"Claire."

My eyes opened.

I was on my feet with no memory of how I'd gotten there. It was not my name that had called me back, and I felt nothing when it was said. It was a name. Nothing more.

Zieg was standing beside me, whole and relatively unhurt, his face grey in the winter light. Alive. The square had returned to what it was, bleak and ruined and ravaged by time. There were no ghosts. No flags. Only black stone and white snow and an endlessly grey sky.

He reached out to me clumsily, only to snatch his hand back before he even touched me. Like he'd been burned.

"Claire," he said again, his voice catching on my name.

My face turned.

I took him in. His fatigue. His distress. The hitch in his shoulders from old injuries that I knew I could exploit. The trembling in his legs that I knew I could turn against him. I saw exactly what I would have to do to break him into pieces and I held back purely because it amused me.

When I spoke, the words burned my mouth, blistered my tongue, and coated the back of my throat with ash.

" _Knight of flames,"_ I said.

Zieg's head snapped back as if I'd hit him.

My lips parted in a smile that threatened to tear free from my face completely. I didn't have enough teeth to fill it. My tongue curled, bathed in salt and bile and coated in fire, and I let that amusement roll up from the depths freely. " _Will you join me in battle?"_

His face stripped bare in the merciless light of the dead city, the age fled his features and perhaps for the first time, I saw how much closer to my age he really was.

His eyes never left my face.

"Yes," he whispered.

I turned away in both satisfaction and contempt, and caught the creature's next killing blow full on.

It made no sound, but I had been expecting it all the same. Zieg shouted something and lunged, but he was too late. It was a vicious sidelong sweep, the same one that had felled Zieg earlier, but my weight was centered firmly on my toes and all I thought to do was bring my arm up and  _block_ it.

When it hit me, my arm remained steady and the blow broke upon me like a wave on unyielding stone. The move had required no thought and had been as natural as breathing, and I noted with another curl of amusement that nothing could ever knock me from my feet unless I allowed it to.

The creature stumbled back, its long sloping head thrown back as its green eyes blinked one after another in a dizzying sequence. Its clawed fingers twitched as if in thought, but I was already moving, my legs pounding through the snow. It didn't have time to snatch its hand back before I caught three of its fingers in my clawed grip and  _yanked_ it forward. The minute it lurched down to my level, hopelessly off balance, I brought my other arm around, and my vision blacked out again, crazed black sparks obscuring everything, and when I came back to myself, my claws were tearing through a point halfway between its elbow and shoulder so hard that the flesh pulped and shredded apart like rotten meat.

My fingers relaxed.

Casually, I let its arm fall into the snow.

The creature stumbled back yet again, slowly, too slowly, one arm still feebly regenerating, the other already rippling with new flesh to replace what was lost. I didn't allow it time. My vision winked out again, and when it came back, I was going after its legs, effortlessly bunching my thigh up to my waist and cannoning outwards with all the force of a sledgehammer, sending the creature pitching and stumbling to its knees in the snow. Its weak, barely formed arm clawed at me and I snaked backwards,  _laughing,_ and then in a split second, Zieg was there in the space I had relinquished, his eyes burning and his sword lashing out like whip.

Without so much as a word exchanged, we worked as a perfectly matched team, curving around each other like dancers. Zieg was too quick for it to hit, and its blows fell off of me like water. No matter what it tried, it could not throw me off balance, and Zieg was always,  _always_ there when it was knocked back. Soon there were too many marks on it, too many licks from his sword and too many chunks of flesh carved out from my claws for it to recover instantly as it had before. Its midsection was a landscape of shredded flesh, clear fluid dripping from its inner cavity onto the snow below.

And then, on some unspoken cue that hummed between us like a plucked string, Zieg's hand stretched out and I caught it. His hand was strong and unyielding beneath mine; his fingers gripping for dear life as he put all his weight into  _hauling_ me into the air, and then I was flying, flying, the wind whipping through my hair and stinging my face as my lips parted in anticipation and I  _screamed._

I landed square in the center of its head, my arm burying itself in its face all the way up to my shoulder.

My weight bore it toppling backwards, the stumps of its arm thrashing weakly, and it did make a sound then. It screamed for me. A buzzing, inhuman screech that reverberated in my teeth and made my eyes feel like they'd burst with pressure as clear, warm, odorless fluid erupted around my arm in a geyser.

And it didn't hurt. It didn't hurt at all.

It thrashed and screeched and died around my arm, and I stayed buried inside of it the entire time, unmoved by its death throes. A rising bubble of pleasure throbbed in my chest that would break me to pieces when it burst, and my vision grew darker and darker around the corners with a sense of horrifying finality. Nothing could be sweeter than this. Nothing more satisfying.

I was aware of a sense of overwhelming satisfaction rising from the center of my bones- satisfaction and  _pride-_ and all was blackness and teeth and circling sharks and the memory of what it felt like to have something die around my hand. And then, like a crushing hand removing itself from the back of my neck, all that power and purpose and terrible amusement left me at once, and I was back drifting in the darkness.

My awareness of my body winked out like a candle.

I was too tired to reach out for it. Soa save me, I was so tired. If I had something follow, something to tell me who I was, then I might have been able to let it drag me back up into the daylight, but the only thing down in the dark were echoes. Dimly, the voice of my father reached me, but that was nothing more than the gnawing of an old wound and it had nothing to do with me anymore. Quieter voices crept up from the background- Keys' peatsmoke drawl- Lotta's easy laugh- and deeper, deeper still, some warm shard of a voice that might have been my mother's- but I wasn't that girl anymore and I hadn't been for a long time.

I wasn't a dutiful daughter. Or a loyal friend. I wasn't a devoted niece, or some ragged little girl clinging to her cousin's hands. I wasn't a bandit or a robber queen or even a very good outlaw, and I wasn't a ministering angel to put all hurts to bed with a kiss on their foreheads. I had been running so hard and so long by this time that I had gone past the point where even I was able to tell who I was anymore.

But then- there was one more voice.

It was mixed in with all the rest.

I hadn't heard it at first because it wasn't the sort of voice that cut through the crowd, but I recognized it all the same. It waited patiently behind all the others for its turn, and it kept steadily going even when all the others weakly faded out.

It was familiar and tired and slightly dry, and warm in a way that had always made my shoulders relax even when I was at my most rattled. The phrasing was always slightly stiff- _everything_ about it was stiff, as if speaking were a habit uneasily taken up later in life when all natural inclination ran the other way. I'd felt it through my back when I'd been bound to him, I'd heard it across campfires and followed it through the trees and I had heard it breaking across his grief like a stick over his knee and it was familiar and real and so  _close_ that it was like it was coming from inside my own head.

It was a rope.

It was a rope and it tugged me back whether I wanted it to or not. I wondered distantly at how that had come about exactly, when that rope had been hitched to me. I wondered what would happen to a person once they had no more voices that could call them back to who they were.

I let myself be tugged, rising up through the darkness and feeling the grim ache of old hurts and the pall of weariness and the woodenness in my throat return to me. This was what it felt like in my bones and this was my body and it was  _mine_ again. My own.

I drew breath. My nostrils stung with cold.

I opened my eyes.

Zieg had one arm looped around the upper part of my chest, the other gripping my arm just where it emerged from the creature's head. He was pressed up against me and I could feel the heat of him through my back. His voice was right next to my ear.

He did not pull. He kept his hand wrapped around my arm, more to provide guidance than anything else, as he coaxed me free in a low, calm, even murmur that been going on for quite some time.

After a moment I realized that there were, in fact, words.

"- done now and all is safe. It's finished. You did well. You did well and you can come away now. Come away from that. It's safe. You are safe. You are who you have always been. It's over now and you must come away from that."

He spoke with a very careful calm without the slightest trace of hurry. His voice was so close it sounded like it was coming from inside my own head. My initial of panic had died almost as soon as it had risen. Despite myself, I was soothed.

The creature underneath us both was dead- truly this time. In death, it looked shriveled and pale and as unimposing as any pitiful dead thing does. Its green eyes had already glazed over. One was punctured and leaking fluid down across its face.

Zieg kept up his rambling as I started to shiver, and inch by inch, I began to respond whether I wanted to or not. Like a dog responding to tone, not words. "Yes, good. Good. It's finished. You did well. It is a tool. A tool like any other, and like any tool you can set it down and pick it up again when you choose and now you must put it  _down,_ Claire. Put it down."

And I wondered, distantly, how long I could have gone without knowing this side of him- the side that murmured an endless string of comforting nonsense into deaf ears while he diligently picked up all the pieces. I wondered how many sides I had left to discover until he finally stopped surprising me.

My hand came free, slowly, slowly, dripping and cold. He  _shhhh_ 'd in my ear, a sound that dropped straight into the pit of my stomach and startled me badly for a second or so, but then his arm around my chest tightened by the smallest amount as he began to step backwards off of the corpse. I very soon had no choice but to come with him. My eyes were locked on the sight of his hand around my arm, just above where my gauntlet stopped. It was either that or look at the hole from which my arm had emerged, glistening wetly and still leaking fluid.

We backed up together, step after cautious step. Slowly, slowly, he let go of my arm and tucked his free arm around my waist as he walked backwards. I let myself be led, and then the arm around my chest let go as he brought his hand up to rest on top my hair to give me a mindless stroke.

He stopped in the snow, still stooped partway down with his chin on my shoulder. Then I was turning, carefully, guided by his hands until I was standing facing him, shivering. He reached up and absently smoothed the hair behind my ears with both thumbs as he looked intently into my face.

I had no idea why I'd ever thought he looked old.

He relaxed when my hands came up to grip both his wrists, his thumbs resting on the hinge of my jaw. He relaxed, stooped down as he was, and for a minute he looked almost foolish with it. "Are you all right?" he asked, still in that same low murmur.

My mouth tasted like blood. I couldn't speak.

"What was that?" I asked when I could manage it.

"An ancient thing," he said. "A dead thing. Its time is long forgotten."

The corner of his mouth pulled sideways, as if in a joke I didn't have a chance of getting.

His fingers came to rest together on the back of my neck, going still. "Are you unhurt?"

I ignored his question like I had ignored the previous one. "Are you?"

Something in his face flickered. "I'll live," he answered without thinking, and then a yawning pause erupted beneath our feet because some things, once said, cannot be taken back and this one especially.

I saw the look on his face when he realized exactly what he was said, and I saw it sink home.

 _It's true,_ I thought as the seconds ticked by.  _Isn't it. He didn't believe it himself when he said it, but now it's true whether he likes it or not._

Zieg calmed. He kept idly smoothing down the hair behind my ears, a compulsive gesture of comfort and apology. As I watched, his hands stilled. "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely, somehow managing to wrap everything up in those two clumsy words and pass it to me as honestly as he could.

And Soa help me, I laughed.

I couldn't help it. It hurt like blazes, but I bent my head and I laughed until I thought I'd be sick- wheezing, breathless,  _wholesome_ laughter that did me more good than a hot cup of coffee and a solid meal ever could. And once he got over stiffening like he was afraid I'd finally gone mad, Zieg  _joined_ me, lurching forward until he was leaning on me for support as much as I was leaning on him, laughter busting out of him just like me. There we were in the ruins of Magrad, dead tired and heaped on each other like drunks staggering home after the worst night out in history, laughing our fool heads off because we were exhausted and filthy and hungry and  _alive_.

We made our way back like that.

One of his arms was around my shoulders, both to support and be supported, and I could tell his ribs were bothering him just by the way he moved. We were still giggling like idiots, like only two people who have just gone through something awful and strange and crushing can. It was the most natural thing in the world to put one arm around his waist and hug him to me, my hip knocking companionably against his. I didn't know if we held on out of relief or out of the honest belief that without something to hold us up we'd go down sprawling, but we held on nonetheless.

And just as we were about to exit the square and make our winding, three-legged trip all the way back to camp, Zieg slowed, his arm firming around my shoulders, and we ground to a ragged halt.

I looked up nervously, but one look at his face reassured me that he was still here.

He had his eyes fixed on a break in the rubble less than ten yards away, a passage that curved ahead into a smaller, open area. And in looking at it, something seemed to pour into his spine and down his legs and firmed them from the inside out. Not strength- neither of us had any left. Purpose.

He remembered I was there. His weight shifted, and he leaned on me a little less. Despite myself, my arm tightened.

He looked down. "I-" he said, his voice still as raw as before, and he caught himself, swallowing. "Can we- That place. I remember-."

He lost his grip on the words as they fell from his mouth, but I knew what he meant, even if it made me want to dig in my heels and refuse to go _._

I nodded.

We turned, ungainly and stumbling, and broke a new path through the snow. Zieg kept his arm around me the entire time and I clutched his waist, my claws pricking through the fabric of his shirt. I was determined not to fall and drag him down with me, and judging from the trembling in his legs he wasn't much further off.

We walked into a garden.

There were no trees, no bushes buried beneath the snow. This wasn't the place for anything living.

Seven identical statues greeted us in an enormous half circle, curving wide all around the entrance to the garden. Each was winged and crowned like the dragoon statue we had come across before in the mountains. Time had done them no favors, but there was still a stark, blunt beauty there that almost made me want to numbly hide my face in the curve of Zieg's body.

We continued without speaking. We were close enough now for me to see the signs carved in the base of each statue's plinth- earth and wind and light and all the other signs of my childhood. Thunder's statue was hacked off at the base by some accident that had taken place centuries ago from the look of it. The face of darkness's statue was crudely gouged and misshapen, as if someone had taken a hammer to it.

Nervousness filled me, and I gripped on to Zieg all the tighter.

 _I saved him,_  I thought, and the thought was like a bell ringing all through me, and I was clutching so tight by now that I would leave bruises on top of his bruises.  _I did. I saved-_

We stopped.

The ring of statues were joined in the center by one that towered over them all, almost half again as tall as a man. It was robed and crowned. It had a staff in one hand and a sphere in the other. The features of its face were nearly worn away by time, but the remnants of a beard curled down its chest. A chain with seven links circled its waist, and spreading out from its shoulders were a pair of heavily stylized feathered wings, the tips of one set of pin-feathers neatly broken off.

The air was clear and cold, with not a trace of that warping magic left in it. The wind had picked up and it sank straight into my bones and right away the cold set to tearing away with its teeth. The clouds had lumped together darker and darker, fat and dismal and grey, and there was nothing here but this garden of forgotten, ruined statues and two half-dead drifters who shored each other up like two collapsing houses.

Zieg let go of my shoulders.

He let go, his warmth vanishing from me far too quickly, and I somehow found the strength in my legs to keep standing, one hand dropping to push against my knee for support. He let go and took three unsteady steps forward, one hand dropping to the hilt of his sword with his knuckles going white.

His eyes were locked on that center statue, both of its wings and arms spread wide. There was just enough fatherliness in that gesture to make me flinch.

He was trembling. Every inch of him was shaking like a leaf at the sight, and I never should have listened to him, I never should have let him come here no matter how badly he said he needed to. I could save him as many times I wanted but I would never be able to save him from this, because how could you save someone from something that happened before you even met them? I didn't want to hit him. I didn't want to beat the weakness out of him like I'd tried to beat it out of myself. People's pain had terrified me ever since I was old enough to see it and this terrified me even worse because I couldn't even see what caused it.

All I could see of him was the dipping, uneven line of his shoulders. His shirt clung to him, soaked with sweat and melted snow, and I could see the warping lines beneath where the flesh had been scored and scored so many times that it had melted together into one agonizing knot. The back of his neck was bared above his collar; I could see the knob at the top of his spine. There was something so absurdly vulnerable about I wanted to cover it with my hands and hide it from sight.

When he finally spoke, his voice was dull and nearly lifeless.

"We thought we were fighting for our freedom."

He drew in another breath, and I was holding mine.

"By- by the end, those of us that were left knew differently," he said, blunt and brittle. "We realized that we were nothing more than… pieces. Pieces in a game played between brother and sister for centuries."

I saw him draw himself up as far as he could. He couldn't stand up straight, even now.

I finally realized what he was telling me.

"They gave us weapons that drove us mad," he said. "They drove us mad and then they fed us into the death city one by one."

And then his voice deepened and firmed and rolled out of him like an avalanche, every syllable ringing with enough damnation and anger to last a lifetime. " _Our General knew."_

I was transfixed by the sight of him. He still shook, his hand locked on the hilt of his sword, but it wasn't weariness and it wasn't madness and it wasn't terror, but  _anger._ I had thought he'd finally gotten rid of it but that was impossible, he felt too  _much._ He was cursed with it, cursed to be alive and angry here at the end of the world with all that anger roaring off of him like a furnace.

He drew his sword.

He took three stiff-legged steps towards the center statue with its widespread arms and its empty eye-sockets looking benevolently over the city.

He brought the sword up high, his form perfect, and brought it whistling down to shear one of the wings cleanly off at the base.

He  _attacked_ it, ignoring the flying stone chips. His shirtsleeves flapped wildly around his scarred wrists as he brought his sword down again and again, panting with effort. In any other moment it would have looked like madness- it  _was_ madness- but it was the same madness that had been trapped inside him for so long that it had nearly devoured him alive in its efforts to get out.

He didn't finish until both wings were gone and the body of the statue was nothing more than a pathetic lump. He stood there, breathing in great, awful gasps, his sword nicked and blunted and dull, its tip sinking into the shoulders heaved.

That was when I finally took his hand.

My gauntlet had dropped forgotten into the snow as soon as I could fumble the straps free. He flinched, badly startled, when I touched him, and I allowed him that. My hand was cold and swollen with bruising around every joint and so much  _smaller_ than his that it was difficult to wrap my fingers around his and still the trembling that plagued him even now. I wrapped my hand in his and wrapped my arm around his for good measure.

He looked down. He shook with all the anger he still couldn't rid himself of completely, that he would never be able to rid himself of.

"I was meant to die in battle," he said to me.

"Me too," I said quietly.

His eyes widened with recognition and understanding and something close to wonder.

I couldn't bear to see it; I hid my face in his arm, my lips pressing together.

He dropped his sword- it fell with a muffled thump- and he untangled his fingers from mine and turned into me, both his arms coming up to wrap around me in an embrace that held me up and held him up and anchored us both. He wrapped me up and smoothed my hair down with one shaking hand. I clutched the back of his shirt, just below where his back turned to ruin.

We held each other like comrades, like friends, because to do otherwise would have brought us both toppling down.

 _I saved him,_ I thought, calm and quiet inside the haunted reaches of my head.

_He saved me._

**0.-0.-0**


End file.
